Reality Rewritten
by Irayana
Summary: BEING REVAMPED/REWRITTEN It began as an ordinary night shift at the corner store where Anne worked, but soon turns into her worst nightmare. How did her night go from ordinary and boring to being kidnapped, falling in love, and running for her life? Anne learns that all is not as it seems as reality loses its meaning and the world turns upside down.
1. Clumsy

This is one of those things that found a way into my head and decided to stay there until I wrote about it.

It has turned out far longer than I first thought it would. Even though nobody might read this I'm glad I put it up.

I dont know if i have to put a disclaimer but just to be safe i dont own own anything that isnt mine. L.J. smith just gives me the inspiration. 8D

ENJOY 8D

*********

It happened when Anne Faysher was still at work, when the world lost its meaning and turned upside down.

She sat at the register counter of the corner store she worked at after school. Anne was bored and eager to get her shift over with. Putting the book she had been reading down she glanced at the clock.

It read 11:28.

Sighing wistfully, she knew there was still half an hour left of the night shift she had been force to take over when her fellow employee called in sick. Anne yawned and focused on the store in front of her. The florescent lights buzzed in the stillness and the aisles echoed the silence. Her manager had left early when he found out his wife had gone into labor and that left her alone. The fact that no one ever came to Gip's Goods after nine o'clock in this suburb of Rockford worried Anne a little. The sidewalks around here were not always friendly to the lone person.

"Well then its good that I won't be alone." Anne said to the silent store. Then she sighed, "I wonder if Garrett even remembers he's supposed to pick me up."

Garrett the Albino Skater as she usually joked with him, was her oldest friend. He was unusually pale but with a dark head of hair and seemed to live on a skateboard. Well at least when he didn't live at her house he seemed to go nowhere without his skateboard. Since kindergarten there had just been a connection between the two kids. It was still there now as young adults.

But then Anne recalled how strange he had been acting lately. (not coming to her piano recital he had known about for months and not returning her phone calls and leaving his mom to make excuses for him were just some of the things he had been doing.) Then she shook her head knowing that at least the last thirteen years were good and that they would hopefully be enough reason for Garrett to drive her home in his truck at midnight.

Anne refocused on the store in front of her putting the thought of problems with Garrett out of her mind. Everything from cosmetics to ice cream and party supplies were available at any Gip's Good across the country. At the moment a box of canned vegetables stood next to the counter that she had been putting off stocking the shelves with. Now she picked it up and carried the box to its proper aisle. Setting it down she started putting the cans in their place.

Just then the small bell over the store's door rang announcing the arrival of someone. Anne peeked around the shelf she was stacking, surprised. It couldn't have been Garrett; he was never early.

Instead of the familiar long-legged figure of Garrett, it was two men who walked through the door. She had always been a good judge of character, or she liked to think so at least. But it was not hard to tell what the men had in mind. She took I in the baseball hats with coat hoods pulled up to cover their hair and the sunglasses on inside and felt a trickle of fear slide down her throat. One of them carried an aluminum bat. She knew what was happening.

Robbery.

'_And they just had to pick the day when the cameras are down.'_

Slowly Anne drew back around the corner and quickly thought about what to do. Her cell phone was with her bag which was at the register counter. The office at the back of the store had a phone but her manager had locked it when he left earlier that night. The silent alarm was under the check out counter so that way to notify the police was not an option either.

Just then she heard one of the men speak, "Where'd the chick go? She was here a few minutes ago. I saw through the window." This voice sounded course and nervous.

"Pro'lly the bathroom." The second voice was smoother and cold.

"Shouldn't we find her?" The rough voice.

"No. Girls take forever in the bathroom. We have the money. We can take it and go."

Anne heard the sharp ring of the money drawer opening.

_They know the code?!_ Anne couldn't believe this.

She began to back down the aisle thinking if she could just get to the back exit she could get out alright. The store was insured; whatever money the thugs took could be reimbursed. Anne was almost to the end of the row of shelves when her clumsiness decided to assert its authority.

She tripped.

"Oof." The breath from her lungs exploded in a gasp before Anne could stop it.

Through the sharp pain that went up her ankle Anne heard the nervous voice speak. "What was that?"

"I don't know. It sounded like it came from the fourth aisle."

Anne knew what aisle she was in. Then…

"Go find out."

She pushed herself up knowing that secrecy was lost. She made a run for the back of the store. She had never been a cross country runner but she had long legs. Maybe…

Just before she could push open the door the nervous voice was behind her, "Stop moving or I'll put a bullet in you."

Anne froze with her fingers just centimeters away from the exit.

"Now turn around."

She did as so and found one of the robber standing in front of her with a small hand held gun in his hand pointed at her face. He was tall and lanky but only a few inches above Anne's own height of five feet nine. He held the gun with a shaky hand as if he wasn't quite sure he wanted to use it.

"Now walk to the front of the store."

Anne didn't move from where she stood.

The man strode forward and said with more force, "Start walking now."

"I thought you would put a bullet in me if I moved." Anne said before she could stop herself.

The man's lips, which were just visible under the large sunglasses he wore, turned down in a scowl. He moved forward and grabbed Anne's arm saying, "If you don't listen to me…something bad will happen." He dragged her down the aisle the gun a cold point through the clothes on her back.

As she was forced around the corner Anne saw the other man filling a briefcase full with the money out of the register. The aluminum bat he had been carrying earlier was set on the counter next to Anne's bag.

"Thought you were going to make a run for it were you?" The man looked up from his stuffing the money. This man seemed to be shorter but more broad then the gun fellow. He smiled an ugly grin that showed yellow teeth, "You thought wrong."

"What are we going to do with her?" The gunman asked.

"Well we have a limited amount of time so there's not many options." These words sent shivers up Anne's back. "Bring her here."

The gunman shifted behind her to grab Anne's arm again, "Move-"

She reacted instinctively when she felt the gun barrel move away from her and the loose grip of the man.

_'Seven years of my life dedicated to learning self defense have finally paid off.'_

That's what Anne thought as she half turned, letting her back slide into the curve of the man's pulling arm. She brought her hands up and gripped the man's arm that held the gun. Hitting the wrist she made the hand go slack and drop the weapon. She rammed an elbow in the man's gut and heard him gasp when the air was knocked out of him with enough force to bruise. Ducking his swipe he tried to aim at her head, Anne swept his feet from under him. It all happened in less then three seconds.

As he fell Anne made a bound for the front door when the other robber finally realized what was taking place. He lunged forward and wrapped an arm around her. She forced herself to go limp and loosen the man's grip but before she could do more then move an inch, one of her arms was jerked back and up behind her.

"You're not the only one who knows fancy moves." The cold voice said into her ear. Pressure was put on her bent elbow and made Anne freeze in her attempt to free herself. "Now be a good girl and listen to what I tell you to do."

She heard the man on the ground groan and push himself up. "Stupid bitch."

The man that held on to her turned forcing Anne to do that as well, "Get the gun, idiot."

The other man, still cursing, obliged.

He handed it to his partner who then said, "Now tie this girl up. There's not much cash in the register for our snort so we're taking her with us. Boys down town will like her. She's a pretty." He shoved Anne against the counter.

She caught herself but winced as the edge hit her in the stomach. '_Figures this is for drugs_,'

Out loud she said "I really think that's a bad idea," she said as the man she had elbowed came toward her with what looked like fishing line. "Robbery is one crime; kidnapping on top of that is completely different. And from what your implying is sex trafficking. That's just bad-"

"Shut up," the lanky man said, slapping her across the face.

Anne gasped, but still managed to say, "Did that feel good hitting a helpless girl?" Before the man could answer she tried to retaliate with another blow but she suddenly felt the cold metal of the gun against her head.

"That's not a very good way to treat somebody with the bigger weapons." the cold voiced man said. "And you are definitely not helpless with your tricky fighting moves."

She didn't know what to do. She ached from her ankle to her arm and was out of the element of surprise since they now expected her to fight back.

As the man tied Anne up the shorter one went back to putting the money in the briefcase, the gun in one hand the other doing all the stuffing. Anne glanced at the clock.

11:37. She could barely believe this regular night shift had turned into a nightmare in less then ten minutes. Then the bell over the door rang.

_'Great. Its either a very time confused customer or more bad guys.'_ Anne craned her neck around to see who had walked into the corner store. At the same time the man at the register looked up from his thievery to see who walked through the door.

It was Garrett.

Black hair was pushed back from his pale face while sharp blue eyes behind glasses he normally refused to wear took in Anne's hopeless expression. Even with glasses, he was amazingly handsome and tall, both things she never failed to notice. But now the sight of him made her stomach clench.

_'Oh terrific. The day Garrett's not late is the day we both get killed._' Anne thought as the taller robber continued to tie the rope oblivious to the boy who had just walked through the door.

Then the absence of the sound of money being scraped from the register called the lanky robber to turn around. He started when he saw Garrett, "Zeek-"

"Shut up, stupid. No names!"

'_Zeek, Zeek_,' Anne repeated to herself as all four of them stood standing frozen, '_I'll remember you Zeek_.'

Then Zeek opened his mouth, "Boy, you best turn around and forget what you've seen else wise you might not like the outcome."

She tried to signal Garrett to go with a flick of her eyes and a small shake of her head. Instead of listening to the robber's order or paying attention to Anne's silent plea for him to leave, Garrett drew himself up to his full six foot two inches. "I'll leave only if she comes with." He pointed to Anne.

"Gar-" she started to say but stopped Zeek was right; no names.

"Who are you to make demands?" The robber who tied her up moved forward and grabbed the bat off the counter, "I don't see you holding the bat."

Zeek nodded his sunglasses slipping down the arch of his nose, "He's right. One last chance kid. Leave and don't come back."

"If I leave then I go get the police. Where's the fun for me in that?" Anne stared at her friend deciding he had gone insane, as the two robbers guffawed.

"Maybe he just wants her for himself." The unnamed robber said. "Doesn't like the plan we have for her."

"Who would like being kidnapped?" Garrett asked calmly and shifted slightly. Anne blinked and suddenly he was in front of the man with the bat. Ten or twelve feet of floor and he seemed to cover it in a millisecond.

"How-" she asked before things got really confusing.

The bat fellow jumped and said, "You just lost your ticket out of here." and he swung the bat at Garrett.

"No!" She closed her eyes and waited to hear the smack of metal on skin and bone but it didn't come. She opened her eyes to see Garrett had caught the bat in his hands and yanked it from the robber's grip.

"Garrett-" She couldn't stop the exclamation from escaping but before she could say anything else there was a flash of movement and Garrett took hold of the once bat-holding robber and tossed him out the door.

Anne stared unable to move, "Garrett! Where the hell did that come from?"

He didn't answer but turned to look at Zeek who stared at him with mixed horror, recognition, and defiance. "You're one of them."

"I have no idea what you are talking about." The black haired boy said taking a step towards the man.

"I think you do." Zeek said trying to slide towards the door. "And I don't plan to stick around and find that its true." Zeek looked at Anne briefly before he turned his gaze back on the boy in front of him, "Girl, you're screwed if you keep this guy in your life. I might not value my life as much as others but I'm not about to die because of a monster."

He threw up his arm that held the forgotten gun and pulled the trigger.

But he didn't fire it at Garrett. He shot it at Anne.

"No!" She heard Garrett yell but before she could realize it she felt something very solid and warm hit her and wrap arms around her waist. She fell against the store's cold, unforgiving floor. Pain resounded through Anne's head and the world went gray.

*******Author's note*******

Yes the character Anne is five feet NINE inches. Honestly most girls these days in stories are portrayed as short and skinny. Not all of them are like that so i decided to add a dose of reality into fantasy 8D


	2. Insanly Confused

I'm still figuring out how this whole thing works with the chapters and the stories.

I dont know if i have to put a disclaimer but just to be safe i dont own own anything that isnt mine. L.J. smith just gives me the inspiration. 8D

Enjoy 8D

********

"Anne… Anne." A familiar voice broke through the clouds that Anne seemed to float on. She didn't want to leave the warm space she was in so she tugged away from the voice.

"Anna-Lorraine Grace Faysher, you wake up right now." The voice was back, stronger now and it pierced the stillness. Anne felt soft hands on her shoulders jerking her out of the place of quiet.

"Garrett?" She asked foggily. Then she remembered. Robbers, pain, gunshot… gunshot!

Her eyes snapped open to meet her friend's very blue ones. "I'm not dead am I?"

"No…" Garrett said slowly.

Anne sat up, noticing her wrists were untied the string that had restrained her laid in pieces a foot away. Garret sat back on his knees away from her. "But I thought the man shot-"

_**At me**…_she didn't want to finish the sentence. Instead she said, "What happened? What did you do? How-"

"Anne." Garrett tried to stop her outburst of questions but she kept going.

"One minute the man was swinging a bat- Oh my gosh. I need to call the police-" She moved to get up then fell back when her head throbbed and her vision seemed to sway.

"Anne don't get up yet," Garret put a hand on her shoulder, "You might have a concussion."

"Move Garrett I'm fine," she said shrugging his hand off, "Who died and made you the doctor?" She pushed herself up ignoring then pain that resounded in her head. Something popped into her mind and out her mouth before she could stop it. "By the way, I've seen you run in gym class and you've never run as fast as you did when those men were in here. Care to explain that?"

She reached in to her bag for her phone but only succeeded in pushing it off the counter so the bag and its contents tumbled on to the floor. Anne was about to brace herself to bend over when Garrett was already there tossing the things back in.

She was about to say thanks when something caught her eye. A bright red stain was on the back of his old rock band shirt. "Garrett…" She said slowly looking closer. He looked up at her as Anne reached out a hand towards the mark. There was a small hole in the middle of the redness the size of a…

Bullet.

"Oh my god. Garrett you need to get to the hospital!"

"What-" he asked standing up after her but she charged on, "God I need to call an ambulance. I need-need to call my boss!"

"Anne!" Garrett said making her look back at him. "I don't need to go to a hospital."

"Uh Garrett you're delusional. Now move so I can get my phone!"

"No Anne I'm fine. Look…" Garrett turned around so his back faced her. Before Anne could say anything else he lifted up his shirt.

"Garrett what the hell-" Then she stared speechless; his back was unmarked except for a small white scar on his shoulder. "But-" she tried to say something. Instead she grabbed Garrett by the shoulders and forced him to turn towards her. With his shirt still raised Anne saw only the pale and unblemished planes of his chest. There were two more scars that were whiter then the rest of Garrett. One was on his shoulder again; the other was above his heart.

With all the times they had gone swimming in Anne's pool she had seen the one near his heart before. He had told her it was from an accident when he was a kid. But the one on his shoulders, the ones that were on both sides of his torso were new.

"But the gun… and the blood… what-" Anne was unable to form a coherent sentence. Then she glared at Garrett and swatted him on the head with the book she had picked up. "You jerk. You idiot. You-you could have been killed Garrett. You should be dead. I should be dead. Why didn't you run when you had the chance to get the police?! And what in the world was the whole 'no fun for me' crap? You're not indestructible!" She jerked away from his gaze and bent down to finish shoving the rest of her things back in to her bag. She grabbed her phone from the jumbled mess and was about to dial the emergency number when Garrett reached out and grabbed her wrist with a rather strong a hand. It hurt slightly through the thin sleeve of the jacket she had on.

"Anne, maybe it's better if you just forget this ever happened."

"What?" She could have sworn she heard her friend wrong.

"I'm saying don't call the police."

"That's what I thought you said," Anne yanked on her arm trying to get him to let go. He didn't and she stared at him, "I have to call the police. Those men were going to rob the store. They were going to steal the money-" she turned her head and saw the briefcase was gone, "Where did it go?"

Garrett watched her wearily and released his hold on her wrist. "When I made sure you were okay, I put the money back. The case is in the garbage behind the store."

She glanced at him then looked at the register. Its drawer was closed, looking the same as it had before all this had happened. "I still need to call my boss and that means the police."

"Anne just trust me. Its better if you just forget this all happened. Forget that there were robbers and forget about what I did."

"Garrett-"

"Anne do this for me." Garrett looked at her with his very blue eyes and she shut her mouth. "I rarely ask for favors but now for both of our sakes don't ever mention this night to anyone. If someone asks please tell them the night shift was boring and quiet."

She was finally able to get a word in when he paused. "Garrett Redfern why would you want me to forget this and lie to everyone?"

"Anne trust me on this. It's better if we don't recall tonight." Garrett went on before she could say anything, "Forget it and go home."

"Garrett, you are telling me to not report a crime."

"Yes."

"And if my boss ever found out I could lose my job."

"If anyone found out a lot more would be at stake then just your job."

Anne sized up the seventeen year old boy in front of her. His eyes reflected the florescent light and they almost seemed silver. She discarded that thought and was about to open her mouth to tell him he was insane when suddenly she lost the will to fight him this late at night. "Garrett…"

He turned to walk to the door, "Just lock up and I'll take you home."

"Really?" she snapped at his retreating back, "Because from the look on your face you'd probably prefer I walked home."

"Anne," Garrett looked over his shoulder, "I'm not about to let you walk over five miles alone on the streets of Rockford." He stopped talking for a moment as they stared at each other across the store. Then he said, "I'll be in the truck."

And he walked out the door leaving Anne in silent confusion.

She stared at the door as it swung shut then closed her eyes and shook her head at what the night had become. Opening her eyes she grabbed her bag and the store keys from the register counter and walked to the front door. Flipping off the lights she left the store through its door. Locking it she turned and went down the sidewalk blind to the commercial building and stores around her. Looking at her cell phone's screen Anne saw it was 12:04.

"Feels like forever ago I was bored out of my mind and stocking vegetables on a shelf." She glanced up at the sky and saw the usually faint stars were completely hidden by thick storm clouds. "Great. Rain."

Just then Anne heard an engine start next to her and looked to see Garrett sitting in his black truck. Swerving on her path, she stopped at the truck's door. Opening it she immediately said, "I forgot to say thank you but I was too distracted by the fact that you're insane and I only just realized it. Wait. Where did you get that shirt from?"

Garrett had changed from his gray t-shirt to a different one. The new shirt had a black rose on the front.

"What band is that? I've never seen it." Then Anne shook her head, "No, don't distract me. I want you to tell me what is going on. Garrett I've known you long enough to know that something is up. And it's not just tonight. You've been acting strange for the past few weeks. Actually since my seventeenth birthday you've been distant."

He stayed silent and stared ahead at the road in front of him. Garrett had yet to drive away from the curb he parked by. Then he shifted and said, "Anne, I told you it would just be better for everyone if you forgot this. No questions and no answers. It-it could be dangerous."

"Garrett, it could be dangerous for other places and people since there are two men out there armed and looking for drug money."

"They're not armed any more."

"How-"

"Anne." He turned and finally looked at her. His blue eyes were bright and Anne found herself unable to look away. "Anne, listen to me and just drop it."

"Ugh." She sighed and snapped her seatbelt on. Without thinking she leaned back against the headrest then sat up with a gasp when a sharp pain went through her head.

"Anne?" She didn't answer when Garrett said her name. Instead she sat back slower and stared out the window at the empty street.

"Jerk." She mumbled under her breath.

"Why?" Anne jumped when he spoke. She must have mumbled louder then she thought. "Why am I a jerk? I told you I can't tell you why I said and did what I did."

She resisted the urge to look at him and said, "You know why I'm calling you that. All you have to do is look at me with your big blue eyes and I'll drop whatever we were talking about. For your information it worked just as it has the past umpteen years. Are you happy?" Anne asked heatedly folding her arms over her chest and glaring stubbornly at her feet. Under her breath she muttered, "Probably die of curiosity though."

"You could die from a lot more then that." Garrett said finally turning the wheel and driving away from the curb.

"Is that a threat?" Anne asked only half disbelievingly.

"No! I'm not-I would never." Garrett said adamantly glancing at her from the corner of his eye. "It's the other people that would."

"Are you in some gang or something I don't know about?" She tried to joke but Garrett's face stayed hard and serious. Softer she said, "Are you in some type of trouble? Did you _know_ those guys? Is that why they said 'you're one of them'? The Monsters or whatever, like from an enemy gang-"

"Anne… no I'm not in a gang, no I did not know them, and they were just sadly confused druggies who were going to hurt you." Garrett shook his head, "what did I say about asking questions?"

"How can I not ask questions?" she snapped watching the street lights go by. "Can't you just tell me?"

"What if the answers you're searching for are what you don't want to hear or won't believe?" Garrett asked quietly.

"If you _tell_ me I could answer that." Anne countered.

Garrett stopped at a lonely stop sign on a residential road off the main ones and turned to look at his friend directly in the eye. But she wasn't looking at him anymore. Instead she was flipping her cell phone open and closed and staring at the street light that cast its glow across the pavement. Anne sensed his gaze on her and looked at him.

Blue eyes met hers for the briefest moment before Anne glanced away but not before Garrett read every emotion behind her dark green eyes.

Trust. Complete and total trust. It was shadowed though, by sadness and worry. Garrett gripped the steering wheel harder but not _too_ hard as he fought the urge to tell her what she wanted to know. Holding it back and continuing to drive seemed like an impossible feat but he managed.

As Garrett silently struggled to control himself, Anne had leaned back against the seat and was studying him. She was alarmed at her friend's attitude. He was paler then normal and not nearly as talkative as usual. Silence controlled the cabin of the truck as the road the Fayshers lived on approached. Her head buzzed with new thoughts that wanted to come out as questions but she refrained from voicing any. Then again the buzzing might have just been the knot at the back of her head she felt throbbing.

Garrett pulled into the drive that lead to a large two story house. As Anne watched, a light came on in a front room of the house and blazed through a bay window illuminating a square shape on the yard.

"Dad is still up," she mumbled unbuckling the seatbelt. She glanced at her friend that sat still as a stone in the seat next to her, "Goodnight Garrett, you're insane and I wish you would tell me what's going on, but goodnight." Anne grabbed her bag and swung it over her shoulder. She was reaching to open the door when her cell phone slipped out of her hand and clattered across the truck's floor.

"Shoot," she mumbled. Anne bent down to pick it up only to find Garrett had already done so.

He held out the small black device to her.

"Thank you," Anne mumbled. As she went to grab it her fingers brushed Garrett's. The small brush of skin against skin seem to stretch out for the longest time and somehow the world took on a golden glow. She could almost feel a thrilling shock go up her arm raising all the small hairs on it. She gasped and jerked her hand away.

_What the hell? _She glanced at Garrett and could tell whatever had occurred, he had felt it too.

That had never happened before.

Of every time they had touched or brushed against each other through the years there was no electrical charge between the two of them not like what she had just witnessed. Not when they were young kids and played countless games of tag or had painted each others faces with finger paint in third grade. Definitely nothing like the strange charge happened when Anne sat in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs preparing for her mother to come out after an appointment with the doctor when Garrett had covered her hand with his. It had been his own way to comfort her. Nothing like the tingles that had seemed to journey up her spine then fry her brain when they tackled each playing chicken at their friend Macey's pool party last summer.

Maybe it was just static electricity as they sat in the truck.

Anne jumped when she heard Garrett's voice. "Knew it would happen someday. I just wish…it hadn't."

His lips didn't seem to have even moved as he said those words. Actually Anne was sure they hadn't for Garrett's mouth was pressed in a thin line as he looked at his hand, cell phone still clenched in it, with a mixture of disbelief, wonder, and pain.

Anne opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out.

"Here." Garrett said loudly and making her jump again. He held out her phone and dropped it in Anne's bag.

She took a breath and said, "Thanks for driving me home." She opened the truck's door and stepped out. Closing it and walking up the front path she turned around when she put a hand on the front door's knob.

Garrett was pulling out of the driveway. Just before he drove off down the road he glanced back at her with shining silvery eyes.

A shiver went through her but Anne waved none-the-less and opened the door to step into the house.

*******Author's Note*******

I know it's clishe the whole best friend relationship that might turn into a more than best friend relatinship but hey- ya gotta love the classics. LOL. So yeah coming along well. Got any comments just tell me. Completely confused about something tell me so i can revise.


	3. Straight Answers Interrupted

Hello again to anyone who wants to read this rambling story from my imagination.

I dont know if i have to put a disclaimer but just to be safe i dont own own anything that isnt mine. L.J. smith just gives me the inspiration. 8D

*********

"What took you so long?" Anne's father was sitting in a chair that faced the front of the house where he was able to watch for his daughter to arrive home.

Robert Faysher was a tall man with a head full of black hair with the green eyes Anne had inherited. He stood up from his chair and walked over to her.

"I had the night shift Dad," she tried to say but her father interrupted her.

"As I recall the night shift ended at twelve o'clock." He looked at his watch on his wrist. "It's twelve seventeen and the store is only five minutes away."

"Garrett was late." Anne said, hating to lie to her father. Then she thought about what might have happened if he had been late.

"That boy-" Mr. Faysher said.

"Gave me a ride home in the middle of the night when someone here won't let me get a car," she said heading around her father in to the depths of the house.

"And I'm grateful to him for that but you know your brother is getting home tomorrow and I need you awake not half asleep for that."

"How could I forget Braden is coming?" She asked under her breath going to the kitchen and flipping on the lights.

Granite counter tops gleamed in the light as she put her bag on a chair. Anne reached into a cupboard and brought out a bowl then went to the pantry to get a box of cereal.

"I know you and your brother don't get along but I was hoping that you two would grow up and be civil to each other for once." Mr. Faysher said sitting down at the table.

"Civil?" Anne grabbed a spoon from the counter drawer, "Try talking to Braden about that since it was him who shoved the pie in my face last Thanksgiving."

"Last fall was tense for everyone what with that being when your mother…" Her father's voice died off.

Anne stayed silent as she started eating her cereal. Then she realized she had forgotten milk. Going to the refrigerator she took out the carton and set it on the counter.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky and made Anne glance at the sliding glass doors that lead out on to the deck. She walked over to the doors and looked over the scene in front of her. The yard of her house and the neighbors backed against a stretch of open land with a small park set in the middle of it. When she was younger, Anne and her friends would play on the colorful playground equipment. But then friends moved and grew up and apart. Now the swings drifted in the wind that blew from the west and carried the storm.

Dully she realized her father was talking. Shaking her head to focus, Anne winced as her head throbbed. She walked back to the counter where her bowl of cereal and sat rubbing her head. A large bump met her fingertips but she pushed the fact away as she started eating her midnight dinner and tuned in to what Mr. Faysher was saying.

"-suggested that you three could go to the mall to hang out or whatever you kids these days do."

"Hang on Dad," Anne said swallowing a mouthful of food, "What do you mean three?"

Her father looked her straight in the eye, "You, your brother, and his girlfriend."

"Ugh." Anne groaned. "I have to spend the day with two love sick birds? You do realize that they'll ditch me the moment we get there? They'll say they will be right back and the next thing I know I'm riding the bus home."

"Braden would not dare do that." Anne's father said there was a dangerous promise in his voice.

She resisted to roll her eyes yawning, "Fine Dad, I'll go and _hang out _with them." Anne put her dishes in the dishwasher and said, "Where are you going to be tomorrow?"

"The office called a while ago asking if I could swing by." Mr. Faysher stood from his chair, stretching. "Otherwise I would be coming with you just for the purpose of embarrassing my children."

"Then I'm glad the office needs you tomorrow," she said getting her bag from the chair.

"Don't forget to turn off the lights when you're done in here." Mr. Faysher said and put a gentle hand on her shoulder as he passed her an his way out of the kitchen.

"Sure thing Dad." Anne said watching him go. Then to the empty kitchen she whispered, "By the way, the store was almost robbed, I was nearly kidnapped, and my friend got shot but there's no proof except a blood stain on his shirt that happened to disappear. "

And she walked out of the kitchen flipping the light off.

Going down the hall and up the stairs Anne reveled in the peace and quiet of the silent house. Going across the upstairs landing she pushed her bedroom door opened.

A big fur ball came bounding towards her to wrap around Anne's legs.

"Hello Zodia." she said looking down at the tortoiseshell cat that stared up at her with bright yellow eyes. Stepping over her, Anne closed the door and turned on the lights.

Mint green walls, the same color since she was ten, made the room seem brighter then it really was. Anne hung her bag on the back of her desk chair and walked over to the big window. The room was warm so she cracked the window open an inch or two, not much but enough to let a breeze waft through. Vaguely she hoped the bug population would not be interested in coming into her room through the screenless window.

She had been given the unpleasant chore of washing the window screens for the house so the screen for her room was not in place. Only the fifty dollars Anne's dad had bribed her with made her get out the hose and do the job.

Now she stood attempting to stare out over the grounds but couldn't. The light in the room hindered her gaze so she looked away. Her head seemed to pound every time she blinked. Grabbing some sweatpants and an old t-shirt out of the dresser that was against the wall, she threw them on and headed for the bathroom.

First thing she did after she closed the door was go to the medicine cabinet and take some painkillers. Brushing her teeth and then combing her hair she studied her reflection. Green eyes the color of pine trees stared back at her while a crown of auburn hair hung around her head framing a rather pale face with a lone freckle under her left eye. Her mother had called the spot her daughter's beauty mark. Anne just called it a nuisance since most the time people thought there was a bug on her cheek.

Anne sighed and went back to her bedroom. Lights off now and the moon behind the clouds, she felt her way to the bed. She laid down with a quiet groan of appreciation for the comfy mattress beneath her aching body.

In the distance she heard a rumble of thunder and briefly thought about getting up to close her window. She decided against it. Snuggling in to her blankets, Anne pushed the thoughts of guns, blood and secrets to the back of her mind and closed her eyes. Sleep captured her mind in less then a breath.

Anne's dreams were bright and clear then the next moment they would be dark and hazy.

At one point she was walking on the bank of the Rock River at a park up in Rockton. She saw her father and brother casting fishing lines out on to the water while she and her mother had been sitting at a picnic table laughing when Mr. Faysher whooped like a child when he caught a fish that was all of four inches. Abruptly Anne was thrown from the happy memory into one she never wanted to relive again.

She looked on as she saw herself, her father and her brother were all standing above a deep hole in the ground that was about to be filled with a beautifully carved mahogony coffin. No matter how beautiful the woodwork was it could not compare to the woman who now lay inside it robbed of the life she had to live.

Anne watched her dream impersonation slowly detach itself from the crowd of grieving family and friends and walk up to her mother's grave.

Sylvia Faysher had died on November 25th, 2007 after battling breast cancer for six years. The disease had ravaged her mother for three years then had gone into remission. One year before her mother's death day the doctors had told the Faysher family that it had come back. Her mother had held on just long enough for one last Thankgiving. She had even found the energy to bake her infamous Mississippi Mud Pies giving everyone the hope Sylvia would beat the disease again.

She didn't. Soon after that Sylvia had died in her sleep with her family around her like she had hoped.

The real Anne whipped away from the dream scene in front of her and felt tears threaten to fall over her cheeks even when she told herself this was a dream and this day was long gone in the past. She hadn't cried on the day her mother was buried she wouldn't cry two years later. Crying showed she was weak and she had to be strong while her father and brother couldn't be. She willed herself to wake up but of course she didn't.

The scenery had changed and she found herself in a hallway in her old elementary school. Colorful pictures of squiggles to disfigured people popped out at her. It was the artwork of first through sixth graders and their attempts at becoming the next Picasso.

The illistrations soon lost their captivation for her as Anne's gaze alighted on something that made her smile slightly with recognition.

A young girl with auburn hair was walking up the hallway carrying a large diorama of a Native American's tepee. For a second grade project the display that she and her mother had created was a little over the top. Anne couldn't complain thought since she had gotten a B for the overall project and A+ for the effort grade.

But now Anne watched her second grade self trying to carry a load to great for her small frame. She winced instinctively when her young self nearly lost the load to gravity when she tripped. But the tepee was saved by someone who had come up behind young-Anne.

A small boy with black hair and blue eyes behind glasses now held the project as she righted her feet underneath herself.

"Are you all right?" Before waiting for an answer young-Garrett asked curiously, "did you make this?"

"Yes. I worked for three day with my mommy on it." Small- Anne said this with pride. Then she humbled immediately. "Thank you for helping me. I probably would have cried if it broke. I wouldn't want Ciarra to see me crying. She would laugh at me and call me names."

"That's not very nice," the young-Garrett said tilting his small head to the side causing his glasses to fall slightly askew.

Anne looked at her young self as she shrugged. "Ciarra does that." Then she scrutinized the boy in front of her. "Are you new? I've never seen you here before."

"My family just moved here from Las Vegas," small-Garrett said not paying any attention to the awed look she gave him. "I was going to...to...Um well Ii don't remember what classroom I was going to but I was heading that way when I saw you."

"Well give me my project back and you can go," young-Anne went to take the diorama when Garrett shook his head.

"It's ok. I can carry it for you to your classroom then find mine." He huffed in embarrassment, "I'll probably end up asking for directions to mine anyway."

"Are you sure? The thing is really big. I was having trouble carrying it-"

"I saw and I'm good. I'm stronger than normal people think."

The dream fell to pieces as the two small children walked down the hall. Anne went spinning into darkness thinking about what happened next and only vaguely cursing the fact that she wasn't having the deep sleep she would have perferred.

After Garrett had helped her get the project to her classroom the teacher had helped Garrett to find his own room. Anne remembered wishing that he could have been in hers. That same day she had found him sitting all alone under a tree in the schoolyard. She had no idea why the other kids ignored him. The last new kid had been the center of attention for weeks but he was not. So telling her friends Samantha and Jennifer to go play without her, Anne had gone over to sit by Garrett.

Neither of them knew that that day had marked the beginning of a solid friendship. Or what she thought had been one before the last few weeks had occured.

Anne sensed something under her back, something warm and comfortable. Then she felt herself rollover in her bed. She was waking up. She wanted to open her eyes to see the time but instead of waking up all the way Anne was dragged back down.

She was sitting forlornly on the playground behind her family's residence. She heard the babble of talk from the people from the funeral in her house. She hadn't gotten it then and still didn't understand why there would have needed to be a get-together after such a sad time. Everybody should have just gone home and reminised quietly about the good times they had had with Sylvia Faysher when she was alive.

She remembered she had gotten away from all the grievers in the residence who wanted only to keep telling her how sorry they were and how awful Anne must feel since her mother died and how they assured her it was okay to cry. They didn't need to keep reminding her of all these facts so she had left. No one had come out looking for her so she had just sat there not crying.

That is until Garrett had found her.

As if on cue, Anne's best friend in the world appeared in her dream looking the same as he did that day two years ago. His striking black hair was shorter but he was still six feet two inches tall, a good basketball height -not that he would even think of foregoing skateboarding for such a sport. He wore black dress pants and white collar shirt with a scarlet red tie. He didn't have his glasses on then so she could see his blue eyes clearly.

She recalled how she had laughed weakly and ask who had been injured trying to convince him to even think of exchanging his rocker shirts and hole-riddled jeans for such fancy clothes. The dream Garrett didn't answer but sat down on the step next to her.

"Anna-Lorraine why aren't you inside?"

She heard his voice clearly not the usual garbled words that she heard in dreams before. She scowled when he used her full name. "I like the fresh air. It's too stuffy in there with all the people and their colognes and perfumes. Not to mention the food and its aroma."

"Anne you're making excuses." He said this matter of factly and she bristle with annoyance.

"You're not inside either," she said venemously. Normally she wouldn't be that harsh with Garrett but given the circumstances she didn't care. Besides this was a dream and nothing she said here mattered.

"That's because you're out here and you happen to be the reason I got all dressed up. Why else would I freeze my fingers off?"

Anne hadn't even noticed the cold then and she definitely didn't notice it in dream form. She looked away. "I thought the reason would have been for my mother's funeral."

"That too," he said with a nonchalant shrug. "Your mom was a great person and I'm sorry that she died-"

The words made something snap in her. "Don't you go saying all the niceties like everyone else has been doing. I've been dealing with it for the last six years. I don't need it from you still. She's gone that's all there is too it."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Is that how you really feel?"

"What is this twenty questions?" Anne snapped. She couldn't believe she was having this arguement in her dreams. This whole thing was deja vus totally.

She suddenly got an idea. It was silly but she wanted to change the route this dream was taking. She knew if she kept going on the path she was she would end up breaking down and crying into Garrett's shoulder until someone had finally decided to look outside for her. She definitely did not want to end up crying in her dreams.

So instead of lying to Garrett about how she felt like she had done in reality Anne switched tactics. "You know how I feel Garrett Redfern. You always do. It's like you can read my mind. Well news flash I can't wallow in grief. My father and brother did that enough for me."

"Anne..." he sighed and she suddenly noticed how his edges were starting to get indistinct. She sensed the end of this dream coming but still heard his voice. "Anne it's okay to show your feelings. It's worse if you hold them all in. Believe me I know from experience."

This conversation had changed definitely but it didn't take the direction she wanted. "How do you know what it's like to hold in major emotions?"

"Trust me Anna-Lorraine i know. I'm doing it right now."

"Join the club." She told him continuing to watch his edges grow fuzzy. "You know, Garrett, I wish you would just give me a straight answer. Either in reality or my dreams you love to play word games that tangle up my mind."

He chuckled softly as she watched their surrondings fade to darkness. The playground which they were sitting on had disappeared but she could feel something of substance under her. What it was she did not know.

"Anne..." he looked at her earnestly with eyes that glowed in the black around them. "I'll give you a straight answer. I'm holding in a feeling and that feeling is-"

CRACK!!!

Anne jumped up in bed her heart pounding.

*******Author's Note*******

The whole story about Anne's mom dying is actually a true one. It wasn't my mother (Thank the Lord) but a good friend of mine's mom. I took my freind's experience and put it in here. She said it was okay. The thing is that it was almost uncanny how her thoughts and experiences had coincided so nicely with my story. She- okay let's call her Nikkie (my friend wants to remain anonomis) Nikkie's friend Danny (not his real name) had come outside when he saw her leave her house and had comforted her in the same exact way I'm portraying Garrett doing to Anne. The whole thing about holding in emotions though is my own little creation. As i said uncanny how it worked out so well for my story. Though Danny is not a skater. He's actually a band geek and is proud to be one.


	4. Truth

Okay. So I _**have**_ been working on this since I posted my first few chapters. The creation of The Room of Requirement's Annoyingly Helpful Hand just sidetracked me.

******

_CRACK!_

_Anne jumped up in bed, her heart pounding._

******

Her heart seemed to be in her throat as lightning illuminated the room. She looked around wildly, unexplained fear making her breath come in gasps.

Slowly the dark silhouettes of only her room's furniture came in to focus. The rain poured outside her window and with another flash of lightning she saw a small wet patch gathering on her sill. Glancing at the clock that sat atop a stack of library books she saw it was only 3:12 in the morning. If there ever was a night Anne wanted to sleep through this would have been it.

_I only have five more hours to sleep. If I wait till then how big could the puddle of water get? _Anne laid back down and shut her eyes only to find sleep evading her grasp. The periodically falling rain that had first lulled her to sleep now kept her conscious.

With a sigh of regret she threw off her blankets to get up. The motions startled Zodia from where the cat had been laying at the end of Anne's bed. She ignored the feline's objections to her movements. Swinging her legs over the side of her bed she walked over to the window. Somehow the moon was peeking through a break in the clouds that dumped rain on the city's suburb. Anne pulled the window shut and locked it and wiped away the water with a dirty shirt she picked up from the floor

Then as she stood there she gazed out at the lonely playground and the open area around it. Thoughts that Anne had pushed from her mind, which she really would rather not think about surfaced.

Her dreams had been some of the clearest she had had in ages. They were memories, reminding her of good times and bad times. Why tonight of all nights her mind had decided to torture Anne was beyond her. She was never one for psychology but somehow she knew her subconscious was sending her a message.

Something was changing and she didn't know how to stop it.

Garrett did not want her to think or even remember that night's events. He said it was dangerous to mention them to anyone. Anne should have called the police but Garrett, the one person she trusted most had told her not to and she listened.

She pressed her forehead to the cold glass of the window. Shutting her eyes she whispered to her empty room, "he has a secret and even in my dreams he doesn't want to tell me."

"Or he can't."

Anne gasped and whipped around nearly tripping when a voice sliced through the stillness. "God how in the world did you get in here?"

"Your window," Garrett said from where he was sitting in her desk chair.

"What?" Anne's sleep deprived mind was not cooperating. She could have sworn he was not there when she first woke up. "How- never mind. Use the door next time." She shook her head hoping the motion would help straighten her thoughts. Instead it just made her dizzy. She tossed the shirt she had in her hand down on the floor. "What are you doing here? The last time you felt the need for a middle-of-the-night visit you just tossed rocks at my window then told me to come out. Now you need to come in?"

"Last time I didn't care if your neighbors saw me," Garrett said swiftly standing up from the chair without a sound.

Anne jumped at her friend's unexpected and silent movement. What happened to the lanky, beanpole boy who was only remotely graceful while on a skateboard? This person who was suddenly a lot closer to her did not support her prior memories of Garrett.

His eyes that watched her warily were still the dazzling blue but they were deeper like he had aged an eternity in the last two hours since she saw him. The room appeared much smaller when it had never felt that way before with the other countless times he'd been in there. He seemed taller taking up more space with not only his body but his essence. An invisible force radiated from him calling to her, wanting her to come closer. It whispered to her about a need, a need for something only she had.

Then Anne shook her head knowing her mind was playing tricks on her. But above the small changes in his visible appearance and the strange feeling that beckoned her forward, Garrett actually looked... nervous.

She found her voice where it was hiding in the back of her throat. Only just remembering that her father slept down the hall she said quietly, "You still haven't answered my question. What are you doing here? Why exactly did you decide to scale the side of my house and scare the living daylights out of me?"

He did not answer. Instead he stood looking down at her with his hands shoved into his jeans' pockets.

"You know what?" She broke the rain-interrupted silence. "Forget it. I'm dreaming still." She turned away with a yawn thinking to herself, _'I mean it's twelve feet of pure siding from the ground to my window. He would have to be a spider or something to climb that.'_

"You're not dreaming," he said softly. Anne glanced at him briefly before sinking back on to her bed as he went on. "After I'm done here you might think you're asleep and having a nightmare but at the moment...no-no you're not."

"Well then maybe you should articulate the reason why you are here." She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Zodia slunk from underneath the bed where she had been and jumped back up on the blankets. The feline sat with her tail wrapped around its feet staring straight at Garret. When he shifted on his feet the cat let out a soft hiss of disapproval.

Garrett froze, catching Anne's eye when she looked at him once more. "That cat never did like me."

"That cat has horrible judgment on somethings," she told him, vaguely hoping Zodia would not understand what she just said.

"Or the best," came the quiet answer.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Anne asked annoyance making her words sharp. "For goodness sake get to the point and stop talking in riddles."

"You know I hate riddles," he said with a small smile and a hint at the old Garrett. Then he became grave. "I don't really know where to start."

"Then start by sitting down and I'll ask what I want to know," she suggested gesturing at the space next to her on the bed.

"I don't think Zodia will let me," he said staying where he was, unmoving as stone.

"You skateboard across busy intersections not caring if there's traffic, jump obstacales that no sane person would ever dare jump, and do tricks and things in and out of the skate park that make me sick just watching you. And you won't sit down because of my cat?" She looked at him skeptically.

"Umm, yeah," he said sheepishly. "Have you ever gotten the death glare from a-" he stopped and she stared at him.

Sighing Anne reached over and took the tortoiseshell cat into her arms. "Sit down now, otherwise I advise you to just leave and forget about me if your going to act like this."

"You are so bossy," he said vaguely but sitting hesitantly on the edge of her bed.

She could not help but notice how he still looked apprehensive. She hated seeing him like that and wished she knew what to do to stop him from looking as so. She watched him for a moment before asking, "Now that you're sitting and not looking like you're about to jump out the window will you please tell why you wouldn't let me call the police about the almost-robbery?"

He stayed quiet watching the rain fall against the window.

"Or you could tell me what possessed you to waltz up to the man with a gun? Oh wait. You could tell me about the _best_ part," Anne said false excitement and sarcasm easily distinguishable in her words. "Maybe you could enlighten me as to why neither of us are dead when I clearly remember that I was shot at and you had blood on your shirt with no injury. Don't even try to deny it." She snapped when Garrett opened his mouth.

He smiled wryly at her and asked, "How did you know I was going to deny it?"

She shrugged, "You had your I'm-going-to-contradict-everything-you-say look on. But you can't argue with what I said because you know it's as true as the fact that my name is Anna-Lorraine. " She quieted her rising voice. "But as I said you have a secret and you don't or won't tell me."

"Didn't you hear what I said after that? I can't tell you." He asked turning to look at her with eyes that faintly glowed in the dark. How could she have ever missed that little factoid about her friend? Then she listened to the rest of what he said, "Technically I'm still not supposed to tell you but given the circumstances I don't really have a choice."

"Then just tell me. How hard can that be?" Anne regretted the words right after she said them.

Garrett's eyes turned hard and before she could apologize he was up and pacing back and forth across her floor not making any sound. He was a living shadow in her room. "Hard is an understatement. This is an impossible, against-my-nature kind of thing. I shouldn't be here but I am. Not to mention I'm breaking a law here so I'm a little hesitant."

"You've never been one for rules Garrett." She said shaking her head slowly. "Now stop tiptoeing around me and just say it otherwise I'm going to start guessing. And the first guess is not going to be pretty." She didn't put much emotion in to the threat. Her lack of sleep was getting to her and she was tired of going around in circles. "And a law? How is coming in to my room breaking a law? I guess in my dad's book it is since he made it clear that I couldn't have boys over after ten-"

He interrupted her. "It's not the coming in to your bedroom; it's what I'm going to do in it that would be frowned upon."

Anne cocked an eyebrow at him worry and nervousness plain in her expression.

He shook his head with an out-of-place grin on his face. "Not what you're thinking Anne."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" She asked while absentmindedly stroking Zodia's fur.

For a minute he seemed to silently war with himself, still continuing to stride back and forth on the wood floor. If it was her doing the movements she would have hit every creak and squeak on the floor making enough noise to raise the dead. Finally he said, "It's not hard to read minds when you're someone like me."

"A skater who is freaking his best friend out?" She said trying and failing to joke. The seriousness in Garrett's eyes stayed as he turned to meet her gaze.

"Anne I'm about to tell you something that shouldn't be joked about. I'm breaking a law as I said. Let me do this because I don't know if I'll go on if I'm interrupted."

She nodded slightly surprising herself with how cool she was being about this.

Garrett stopped moving finally which made her relax a little. Watching him had reminded her of an animal on the prowl. He sank on to the end of her bed seeming to lose all of his energy. Zodia hissed but both of them ignored her.

He stared at his hands as he started to talk, "Anne, between you and me, I've tried to be honest with you about almost everything. Ever since I saw you in the halls at Jackson Elementary I felt like I needed to know you for both our sakes. It was completely irrational."

"Why?" She asked before she could stop herself. "It's human nature to care about others and want to have friends."

"See there's the difference." He turned to Anne locking their gazes together. "Human nature doesn't apply to me. Human laws, human habits, nothing like them affect me." His eyes seem to pale from their blue. The moonlight must be reflecting on them for Anne could have sworn they turned silver as she watched.

She felt her muscles freeze and her heart beat. Why was her fight or flight instinct trying to kick in? "Umm... news flash Garrett you're human as much as I am."

"No, Anna-Lorraine," he said still not breaking the connection their eyes created. "You're a human. I'm a vampire."

*******Author's Note*******

Cue evil music. Dun Dun Dun DAAAAAA.

I'm going on vacation and have been forbidden to take my computer along. I'll update when I get back which is in three days. But dont hesitate to ask questions or comment.

-Raya


	5. Discovery

For the chapter title...well, I have yet to come up with one. If you have a suggestion I would worship the ground you walk on (Figuratively speaking since I wouldn't know where you walk) if you could tell me. I'd definitely be greatful.

So my vacation was good.... until it decided to dump buckets of rain on my family's head the day we got back. We actually went without electricity for awhile . Not good when the average temperature is 90 degrees and the air conditioning is out. Oh well. I coped and it gave me time to think about stuff for the story.

Sorry for the wait.

Thanks for the reviews. I now know why people ask for them. It's kind of like the ultimate writer's high after reading them. 8D

**********

_She felt her muscles freeze and her heart beat. Why was her fight or flight instinct trying to kick in? "Umm... news flash Garrett you're human as much as I am."_

_"No, Anna-Lorraine," he said still not breaking the connection their eyes created. "You're a human. I'm a vampire."_

**********

The rain continued to patter against the house, thunder vibrating the walls around them. Lightning outlined the curtains on the window with every blinding flash. Wind moaned outside while inside the Faysher's home it was silent except for the minute sounds of both the teenagers' uneven breathing. No sound had yet to come from Mr. Faysher's room since he was locked in the realms of oblivion as long as no one disturbed it.

Anne sat there in her ratty sweat pants and t-shirt that had the faded logo for her high school on it looking into eyes behind geeky glasses that off set the whole appearance of bad boy skater, which reflected the moonlight. Then it registered; there was no moonlight. The clouds had once again blocked any natural light that could have come in to her room.

She found herself frozen in place as Garrett suddenly started talking in rushed whispers.

"I know I did this the wrong way but I didn't have any other choices. I should have eased into it more and on a different night or day. I shouldn't be here at all but fate decided to be cruel to the both of us but if I kept it from you your damn curiosity to find out answers would have made you find them out the wrong way and you would have gotten hurt. I know this is hard to believe and that's to be expected since for the last ten thousand years or something like that it's depended on our lives to keep the humans from finding out that people like me exist."

Anne stared at Garrett for a moment not entirely sure how to react to what he said.

The first reaction that Anne felt was amusement at his attempt to tell her such a ridiculous story and thinking that she would believe it. Then came the annoyance at his toying with her at such a late time. Or early time if she thought about it but she was not in the mood to strain her brain. "Seriously Garrett you can cut the crap here and now. I don't appreciate the abuse of my trust for you. I don't see why you need to make up such things. I'm not happy."

He looked at her with those silvery blue eyes and, if anything, he appeared unconcerned by her sharp words. "I'm not happy either and I didn't make anything up."

"Oh please," she scoffed unable to hide her contempt for this whole thing. "A vampire? You're blaming everything on some whacked idea that you, Garrett Redfern, are some mythical creature and because of that you have missed my piano recital at the Coranado Theater, have been avoiding me at school and anywhere else, and had the guts to walk up to Zeek who threatened you with a gun? I may be spacey at times and have no common sense but this tale is to tall to even see the top. If you want my opinion, this is the worst and meanest prank you've ever done and if you won't be serious then get out."

"This is not a _trick._" His words were barely a whisper. He gave her a glare that was normally reserved for their Honors Geometry teacher Mr. Cadotte.

She knew he was angry; she had seen him in this mood before when he and his father had a fight or when he had been accused of cheating on his Biology Final last semester. But now she did not feel the overwhelming need to comfort him or croon soothing words like before. No. Now she was just as mad as he had been when Danny Bars asked Anne to Homecoming last fall.

When she was able to speak she was as quiet as he was and her voice just as dangerous. "Why did you pick tonight of all nights to turn into a complete jackass?"

Garrett did not answer. Instead he glanced up and away from her to land his eyes on the door. "Your father thinks your having nightmares and yelling in your sleep."

"What? How does he know?" It only occurred to Anne then that her voice had continuously gotten a little louder with outrage as every words passed through her mouth. Quieter but just as irritated, she asked, "Better yet how would you know?"

He turned towards her and caught her gaze holding it. "There are so many things you don't know about me Anne. And I will try and tell you after your father leaves. I just hope you can believe me."

"What-" she never finished the question for that was the moment perceptible footsteps came down the hall. She scrambled to her feet and looked uncertainly at the black haired boy still sitting on her bed looking calm on the outside but a little dazed on a deeper level. As mad as she was at him she did not want her father to tear his- or her- head off for such a late visit. Before she could ask Garrett to childishly hide in the closet for the safety of both their heads, the door opened.

Her father stood there dressed in pajama pants and shirt with a robe carelessly thrown over the getup. His tousled hair and tall frame were haloed in the hall light shining behind him. "Anne what-"

Like his daughter just moments ago, he did not finish his sentence for Mr. Faysher had caught sight of the young man sitting on his little girl's bed at a very improper time at night. "Anna-Lorraine Grace Faysher what is he doing here?"

"Dad, Garrett was just leaving-" she tried to say but her father interjected with icy words.

"Oh don't stop the party for me," he said and crossed his arms over his chest and fixed a menacing eye on her companion. "But tell me, why I shouldn't ground you until you graduate college?"

"Dad, I haven't done anything to warrant grounding," she said furious at him and Garrett who had found it in his good graces to slowly push himself to his feet. "This isn't-"

"Hello Mr. Faysher." She jumped when she heard the skater speak suddenly out of the blue.

Her father seemed to bristle with pent up anger. Normally he was an easy going man with few harsh words to deal out but when it came to his children there was hell waiting to be let loose. "Boy, you better have a good reason for being in my daughter's bedroom at a time like this."

"I do but I'm sorry to say I can't share it with you." Garrett said these words calmly, a huge contrast to the way he had been talking earlier with a frenzied desperation.

Anne turned to glare murder at him. This was far to ridiculous to go on and was going to tell both of them that when she caught sight of her thought-to-be friend. With the light from the hall way she could see Garrett's face- and felt a sliver of fear slide down her throat.

He was paler than his normal tone, honestly he was white as a piece of paper. He looked foreboding with his messy black hair and stubborn chin. The only thing out of place- besides him being in her room- was his hands which were clenched tightly as if he did something that required effort when all he did was stand there. Her gaze swiveled up from his clenched hands to alight on his eyes. They burned with an inner fire but had a darkness spreading from them. They made her cringe away from him involuntarily even though it was her father he watched.

And for some insane reason, in the back of her mind that was hidden by shadows, something told her that he had never looked more handsome.

"So now with all that said," Garrett said to her father as if carrying on a previous conversation, "I was wondering if you could excuse us. We were having an important conversation."

She nearly choked at the way he was talking to her father. Truthfully she was surprised Mr. Faysher had not taken it upon himself to threaten Garrett with the baseball bat he had stashed under his bed in case of emergencies. She glanced at her father waiting for the explosion to come but received a surprise.

Her father looked around confused as if he was not sure where he was. "I-I suppose since there's nothing wrong here... I'll just head back to bed."

Anne gaped completely speechless and more confused than ever. A new headache was hammering its way in to her temples.

Mr. Faysher blinked suddenly sleep heavy eyelids a few times and appeared faintly distracted before mumbling a vague order to be quieter.

And he was gone shutting the door softly in his wake.

She watched the light vanish and darkness begin to reign again, trying to remember how to breath. Slowly turning only her head she stared at Garrett who had assumed his position on the foot of her bed, forcing Zodia to leap off the blankets and hide under the desk with a disapproving hiss.

"It's kind of clishe," he mumbled not looking at her. "Telepathy is the oldest known trick in the book for my kind and it's always the first power portrayed in the exceedingly rare situation like this."

"_Telepathy_..." she breathed out not sure she heard right. "Your _kind_? Are you still expecting me to believe that? You set this whole thing up with him. April Fool's day was over a month ago."

He swung his head up to meet her livid gaze. "First of all your dad had nothing to do with this. He's just concerned as to why his daughter has a boy in her room."

He said it so matter-of-factly that she could not keep looking at him. She stared moodily out her window as he went on.

"Second of all I know when April Fool's Day was and third..." he trailed off. "This isn't some prank I decided to pull. If I hadn't broken one law of the Night World I wouldn't even be here breaking another and explaining all this to you."

"Night World? God, this- _you_ are so childish. Garrett, _you can't be a vampire_." Anne put all her annoyance, all her anger and sadness into those last five words. Her knees wobbled and exhaustion was wrapping her in a fog. She found herself leaning against the wall. "I've known you since you were seven years old, I've seen you eat garlic, you don't sleep upside down or in a coffin and you-"

"Everything you think you know is wrong," He interrupted her fiercely. "As I said before all of my kind has been too careful to let you humans broadcast true information about us to every continent and the moon. We are indestructible because Nighters have protected our secrets."

An image flashed in her mind's eye of a bullet hole and blood on an old rock band T-shirt with more-or-less perfect skin underneath.

"Well I guess we didn't safeguard everything." Anne jumped, knocked out of her memory by his sharp words. "Human movies and books got one thing right."

She pressed her fists against her eyes not wanting to look at him anymore. To herself she asked, _Oh yeah and what would that be?_

"That would be the fact that wood is the only thing that can seriously hurt us. Guns and metal don't do permanent damage"

She looked up thinking that she must have talked out loud for him to have answered so accurately.

"No you didn't. I told you telepathy is a common ability for someone like me. That and better eyesight than humans, I wear glasses though for my own reasons and not that I need them, better sense of smell, hearing. We're faster than your weak eyes can see and we're built for one thing to do." He paused and she did not know if it was for emphasis on the coming point or just because he was truly worried about how Anne was going to take this. "We're built for hunting."

"This is not true. This can't be true," that was all she could say for her heart seemed to be in her throat. She felt herself slide down the wall to sit on the floor. She swallowed and said, "Go away Garrett."

"Anne..." he sighed staring hard at his hand that were resting on his knees.

Anne watched him for a second more then pulled her long legs against her chest and resting her head on them. She refused to look up when he went on.

"I don't think what I'm about to do will help you sleep since no doubt you'll have nightmares but if it convinces you...." he trailed off.

Vaguely she heard the quiet groan of her bed springs as he stood and walked over to her. No sound came from him, however; she just felt his body and the space it took up next to her. Heat washed across her to sink down through her thin pajamas and into her skin. Something wanted her to open her eyes and meet his. A cry for her to make a connection but this call went to the answering machine and was erased.

"Garrett, just-" she found her voice was trembling. She swallowed hard and said, "Just get out of here."

"Look at me Annie."

His voice whispering her childhood nickname was right in her ear with the tenor sound reverberating on the inside of her skull. _Look at me, Annie, look at me. I'm telling the truth. Please believe me._

She would not open her eyes because she could not believe him. Everything he was saying went against the grain. There could not be mythical creatures in a world where the only thing mythical was batty Ms. Cumber down the street who claimed to be a Hollywood star in hiding. It just could not be true.

She heard him let out an exasperated sigh. "Anna-Lorraine open your eyes right now."

Against her will even when she was trying to keep them clenched shut, the muscles relaxed and she found her eyelids sliding up. Anne gasped when she saw that Garrett's face was only inches away from hers. She did not move back though for she was suddenly frozen to place by shock as his handsome features began to change.

At first it was just a shift in the characteristics of his face, almost too small to see. His finger combed, disheveled hair seemed to shine with perfection and his angel carved lips skinned back from his teeth. His eyes turned into liquid pools of molten silver. No optical illusion or moonlight could have created the predatory gleam of a hunter finding prey that was now discernible in his expression. And nothing, absolutely nothing in the world could have prepared Anne for what happened with his mouth.

Fangs. Long, white canines like a cat's had emerged to slightly indent his bottom lip. They were nothing compared to the curio teeth sold in stores around Halloween, or the candy ones she and her brother had used to snack on when the two of them were kids. These looked too strong, too sharp, and too real to be part of a trick.

Anne swayed as her vision went half gray. In the distance she heard Garrett call her name and tell her to breath.

No...this wasn't Garrett. This was a monster from some nightmare or horror movie that had come alive. Someone that went against nature who hunted humans down and-

Abruptly she felt warm and surprisingly strong hands grab her by the shoulders. The next words broke through the suffocating dizziness that had become her mind.

"I'm not a monster like that Anne."

She flinched away from the hands but they kept their hold, not hard but not exactly gently, just determined to keep her from moving away. "I'm a living, breathing being just like you. With a few extra talents."

All she could say was, "Oh my God."

Then Anne fainted for the second time that night.

*******Author's Note******

hello.... yeah I don't know why but I don't like this chapter for some reason. I mean I think it's good but it's just not like my others.

Questions, comments, demands or appeals, just ask or say them in review form.

I will be starting school soon (blah!) so I'm going to try to have another chapter up before that because with classes I'll be busy again. It might be a little different. I'm thinking about putting in a chapter that's from Garrett's POV more or less.


	6. Faint at Heart

**Yo me homies!!! What's crack-a-lackin?**

**Whoa. ****Sorry. I had a moment there.**

**Thanks for the reviews, the alerts, or just for the time it took to read this. Now I hope you read and review this. I definitely won't complain.**

**This is Garrett's story/POV more or less. **

****************

Garrett moved to catch Anne before she pitched forward to the floor. In his opinion she had been spending to much time on it lately. If she had been awake she would have found herself unable to follow his quick and nimble actions. So instead of the hard floor being what she hit her head on again, it was his shoulder.

He cradled her against his chest, arms tight enough so Garrett could hold her up but not enough to bruise like he knew he could. She was so fragile. Her height and piercing eyes that normally intimidated most people were no shield against his people of the Night World. He felt the crushing need to protect her. What's more he had experienced those types of feelings before the moment in the car where time had stood still.

It felt so right holding her, two wholes almost becoming one. He wished for her to wake up so she could see just what she did to him. Gingerly he stood not wanting to jolt her with any fast movement. God she smelled wonderful. The lingering scent of her vanilla shampoo mingled with that of her unique and intoxicating aromas made him light headed.

And something changed. His eyes that he knew were spheres of mercury faded to their ordinary blue and the fangs that had lengthened to needle points retracted. Gently, with strange shivers going up his arms from where his sensitive skin touched hers, he laid Anne carefully on her bed.

_Why do you have to be so faint hearted at the worst of times? _He silently asked Anne even though he knew telepathy did not work when the person he talked to was unconscious. He wanted to keep talking to her though, telling her the real reason he had come here that night. To tell her he-

He cut the thought short knowing her had been thinking the same thing over and over for so long now and that it had not made a difference. He would always be Garrett the moody and slapdash friend with a talent on the skateboard but only because he had a vampire's uncanny grace and control of its movements, who happened to catch a falling Social Studies project in second grade. How could he, a creature of the night who has done things that would shock and disgust her, compare to the being she was, kind, patient and full of light with an amazing skill on the piano?

Slowly he knelt down next to her not wanting to leave yet. This was the first time in years he had ever been in her room as she slept. Once she had hit her thirteenth year her father made his opinions of about the boys that hung around Anne clear.

Tonight had been a challenge for Garrett's telepathic abilities. Mr. Faysher had engrained it into his mind that he would allow no non-family males to step foot in the off limits zone that was her bedroom. So when the teenage vampire had told him it was fine that Garrett was in her room that late it had strained his Power.

Without conscious knowledge of even doing it he traced a finger down her cheek and across her jaw. He was hyper-aware of how fast her breathing was and how hard her heart pounded near him sending liquid life through her body.

The dullest pain traced up the back of his throat accompanied by the feel of a smoldering fire. Garrett pushed the hunger back; it was easier than it had been twelve years ago when he had first met her. Now it was excruciatingly important to keep himself in check. One slip up and she would be gone, out of his life and taking his heart with her.

Swiftly he stood up not wanting to stay and continue to be tempted. He looked down at her serene face wondering how he could not have truly seen just how important she was to him years ago. Why had he not told her this when she asked why he was angry at her for accepting Danny Bars as her date or when she had dragged him to the movies

Besides there would no waking Anne up to finish this conversation. Her swoon had turned into an exhausted sleep with her breaths coming slower and heartbeat lowering to a more gentle pace. He did not blame her; she had had a rough night. Probably rougher than what was healthy no doubt but he knew that this discussion about him being a vampire and where that put their relationship with each other at had to be finished one way or the other. So before he left, by way of door this time since Mr. Faysher had fallen in to a deep sleep, Garrett grabbed a piece of scratch paper off of Anne's desk and scribbled a note.

Then with one last glance back he raced out of the house going at inhuman speed hoping no one had seen him. He was heading west to his own house a dozen streets away from Anne's. He had not brought his truck. It was too loud and it attracted far too much attention. Besides getting wet from the rain would wash away any smell of Anne on him. He definitely did not want his family to notice.

He had made the excuse to his parents that he needed to hunt. Neither his father nor his mother had asked where his shirt he had put on that morning had gone. Not even his sister Breccan Redfern, who usually watched him like a hawk, had mentioned anything or asked any incriminating questions.

That above all else worried him. He slowed down immensely so that he just seemed like a normal person walking around in the rain.

Breccan had hinted multiple times to him and others that he seemed to be awfully devoted to a particular human- vermin to his family. That was the whole reason Garrett had needed to start spending not as much time with Anne, it was for both of their sakes. As much as the separation hurt him he refused to be the cause of her death if anyone other than his annoying sister noticed that the majority of his time was spent with or nearby Anna-Lorraine Grace Faysher. Breccan's silence on the subject left him uneasy and looking out for any threats constantly.

His whole plan of staying aloof started going down hill when Anne had asked if he could maybe give her a ride home after the night shift for old times' sake. It had struck his heart when he read the sad look in her eyes that told him she acknowledged the fact that months before he would have agreed immediately but now he was most likely going to refuse. Garrett knew that his actions and standoffish manner was affecting their friendship he got up every morning for. It completely went down the drain when he had arrived at the corner store to find Anne being threatened by the man named Zeek. He had lost control of himself and now...now he just hoped that those two men were too doped up to remember much.

_You're one of those. _

He distinctly recalled what the short and stout robber had said. That could be bad news. It meant not only had he recognized what Garrett was it also meant that Garrett had to kill him.

"That's no problem," he whispered to the night.

After Zeek had threatened Anne he wanted to kill him than and there. Of course he had refrained from doing so in case he terrified Anne. He wanted to go and do that now and show Zeek that he should fear what the night truly holds in store for humans. Show him that when he messes with fire he gets burned.

But of course Garrett could do no such thing. At least not yet. He had parents to go home to and a sister to try and not look suspicious in front of.

And he had to contemplate just what had happened in his truck in the Faysher's driveway nearly four hours ago. So before he would have liked it, he reached the front entrance of his family's contemporary style ranch. He braced himself and turned the knob to open the door.

It was never usually locked. Nothing around there was capable of hurting him or his relatives. The last vampire hunter that had lived anywhere near the city of Rockford was gone before any Nighter could take care of her. Besides, no resident werewolf, witch, or other vampire would really want to have the Redfern family's revenge looming over their heads. Silently, at least to human ears, he padded up the stairs making sure that his metal barriers were up and reinforced. It would not do any good to have his father, who he had inherited the stronger than average power of telepathy from, to snoop through his head.

It would have been just as bad as having Breccan sitting in his room waiting for him to come home.

Which she was but he did not realize this until she spoke. "Garrett Redfern, you're awfully late."

He glanced up in mild surprise. "Haven't I told you to stay out of here?"

"You might have. I don't remember, you know me. I'm such a blond." She shrugged and combed her fingers lazily through her hair.

His room lights were off and it was almost pitch black but he could easily see his sister. Unlike Garrett who was tall, broad and dark, she was short, slender, and fair, a spitting image of their mother with curly dirty blond locks and bright blue eyes.

He scowled at her wondering what Power in the world or beyond it had cursed him with such an hair wrenchingly annoying sister. "I told you and Mom and Dad that I needed to hunt. That would be why I'm late. Shouldn't you be asleep? Aren't you going to Club Iris tomorrow morning?"

She ignored his attempts to get off the subject as to why he was late. She gave him a cold stare and said, "So what took you so long to hunt? There's only about 150,000 people in the city of Rockford. Too many choices?"

"It's late, as you said. Not many people out. I was lucky to catch a woman down on East State Street going in to her office." He made sure to picture clearly in his mind, a dark haired, red lipped intern to a firm in the city that he had seen a few weeks ago hoping Breccan would take the bait. She had the same power of telepathy as he did but not as strong. He felt her prod at his mind beyond the woman's picture and deeper. He threw up a stone wall and said out loud, "Will you stop and get out of my mind and room?"

"Fine," she almost hissed the word out. She stood in a graceful motion and strode to stand in front of him. She came up no farther than his shoulder but sometimes it felt like she was the bigger person. Especially when she glares at him like now. "But Garrett, next time you want to lie make sure the scents on you correspond with the story." She flitted to his door and turned slightly around to continue frowning at him as he stood casually beside his bed trying to hide any emotion on his face. "You may not _smell_ like a certain human who I know you went to visit, but you also don't smell like you just hunted. No fresh blood scent at all."

Garrett silently cursed himself as he watched her leave the room. He went and closed the door of his room barely containing his worries and anger. Who was she to judge him? What gave her the right to threaten him, her _older brother? _Then he sighed and sat on his bed. Being from the Night World gave her the right to do those things.

There were two rules that his parents had drilled into their children's minds. The first was simple enough. Keep the existence of the Night World a secret for the sake of its inhabitants. Humans easily outnumbered the vampires, shape-shifters, and witches put together and there for posed a threat to Nighters.

The second law was to not fall in love with a human.

Evidently, Garrett broke both. He and Anne were now targets of the Night World.

*******Author's Note*******

Uh.... yeah. Ta da? I don't know.

Depending on if I get a positive response to the whole Garrett's side of the story I might do it again.

I really don't know about this.... It was put together kind of hurriedly. I was focusing on Dead to the Heart (which is now up) for a while.


	7. Morning Surprises

Okay here's something worse than the first week of school: Getting **_sick_** during the first week of school.

NOT FUN!

So in between sleeping and doing the homework my teachers are sending to me I managed to throw together this chapter. Then it turned out my classes and their homework took a lot longer to do than I expected.

Yes, those are my pitiful excuses as to why I made you all wait to read this.

Thank you to all those who reviewed my story or put it on your Alert lists.

So now it's the next day and it definitely holds some surprises.

******

Anne knew she was awake. She just really wished she wasn't. What she wouldn't give to be young and innocent again and not know the secrets she knew now. But, no, that was not for her. Somewhere along the line some big Power decided she was the perfect person to torture.

Anne should have guessed her morning was going to be a trying one when she woke up to the sound of rain fading away and feet pounding up the stairs towards her room.

She had woken up not long ago, had glanced at the clock which read 7:32, and was now laying with her eyes shut tight mumbling to herself words that sounded a lot like, "it was all just a dream. Not real. Just a dream."

Suddenly her door crashed open jolting her up right in bed while a deep voice sang out, "Wakie, wakie Annie! What kind of sister isn't up to greet their older brother when he comes home from college for the weekend?"

"The one who wishes she was an only child," she snapped at the grinning brown haired young man who stood in her doorframe. "Why do you have to act so much like a child Bradon?"

That just made Bradon Faysher smile wider. "Someone has to remember that life is made for living not moping around in bed all day. And since that someone is not you, I will happily fill the position."

She fought back a yawn and said heatedly, "You would be happier in one piece which you will not be if you don't get out of my room."

He shrugged not at all put off by her threat. He never was; he knew she had the brains of the family and he had the bronze. They found out years ago when it came to a wrestling match, even with her self defense knowledge, he could have her pinned in no time. She did not want to admit that, no matter how annoying he was, she did not want to actually cause bodily harm.

Right now she was rethinking that last factoid as Braden said, "Same old Anne, testy as ever."

"Same old Braden, immature as ever."

"Why do you two have to pick on each other so soon?" Mr. Faysher, clean shaven and dressed for work, had appeared behind his son. "Braden, I told you to act like you really are a sophomore in college not a two year old. Anne," he turned to her as she nearly tripped as she got out of bed. "Are you okay? You look pale."

"Of course she's pale," Braden said with a wicked gleam in his eye that made her want to go over and slap him. "She never goes into the sun. Just spends all her time sitting at the piano and playing depressing tunes that disturb the neighbors."

"And you spend your time getting what little brains you have spread across the ground during football practice."

"Children," Mr. Faysher said in his rumbling tone that made both of them stop in their sibling squabble and look at him guiltily. "You two are both old enough to behave. I have to go to work and if you are going to spend the day together and act like this I will ground you both to your rooms with no T.V. or piano for the weekend." Neither of them opened their mouths to argue knowing it would be useless. He nodded and then added, "Anne come down stairs when you're ready. I cooked breakfast."

"Breakfast?" She asked half distracted. She had glimpsed a piece of paper that had fluttered to the floor.

_Now that wasn't there last night._ Anne thought to herself before saying out loud, "it must be a very special occasion Dad for you to cook. Usually I'm the one doing that."

Mr. Faysher shrugged before clapping Braden on the shoulder and looking at Anne before he said, "I had to be up any way and your brother's home so I thought I would whip something together."

"If you say so...Wait. Isn't Brad's girlfriend coming over?"

"You had to tell her?" Her brother turned to glare at their father.

"I wasn't going to keep it a secret from her. By the way did I tell you that the three of you get to be spending some quality time together today?"

Suspicion was easy to read in Braden's hazel eyes very much like how their mother's looked. He glanced at Anne and said, "Quality time? How so?"

Apparently her father _had_ forgotten to mention the plans for the day to her brother. Anne just shrugged saying, "Dad will fill you in. I'll be down then once I take a quick shower. Try not to eat all the breakfast."

She was still half distracted when her two family members left. She winced as her door slammed against its frame. Listening to her father berate Braden for shutting the door so hard as they made their way down the stairs, she walked over to where she spied the lone piece of folded paper laying on the usually clean floor. She picked it up and sucked in a sharp breath when she saw the slanted print on the outside. The handwriting was unmistakably Garrett's.

_**Annie**_-

She adverted her eyes from the scrawled note. Did she really want to know what was written on the stationary? She bit her lip. Who was she kidding? Of course she did. As said before her curiosity was a curse along with her clumsiness. Slowly, bracing herself as if it held the date of her execution, Anne opened it and read on.

**_I'm sorry to have scared you. You're far too important to me and I told you my greatest secret because I don't want to lose you. Please don't tell anyone about last night. It's dangerous. Rip this note up and dispose of it when you're done reading. You're creative; think of a way to do it so no one is any wiser._**

-_**Garrett**_

**_P.S. I'll see you later today. Our conversation from last night isn't quite finished._**

Her legs wobbling, she sank onto her desk chair then jumped up when she remembered just who had been sitting in it last night. She leaned against the desk's edge instead and buried her face in her hands. She felt like crying and laughing at the same time.

Could it really be that simple? Could her brother still be the immature, jerk he was last time she had seen him? And could her father truly not have a clue as to what had occurred? Life did not have the same meaning for Anne as it had yesterday morning. What was reality to her when everything had turned out to be a lie?

Her best friend was a monster. One with fangs that could pierce flesh, with telepathic powers to control his prey so there would be no resistance. She gulped when she realized what else must be true. His family... his smiling, welcoming mother, his stricter more reserved father and his sister who dominated the school's cheerleaders. They had to be...

"No," she said this out loud and took her face from her hands and pushed away from the wooden desk to pace the room, forgetting about breakfast. She stopped to glare out the window at the gray sky. This was all too surreal.

"He's not a monster," Anne whispered to nobody in particular. "He wouldn't- doesn't kill people. He may act the bad boy but he's not... he couldn't... Breccan maybe, but not Garrett."

"Anne are you coming?" She heard her father call up the stairs his voice shattering her garbled thoughts.

She forced herself to stride to her drawers and pick out clothes to wear without a second thought. She yanked open her bedroom door and rushed towards the bathroom yelling in response, "Yeah, I'm coming."

Wincing only a few times when she touched the knot on her head from hitting the ground in the corner store, the following shower was one of her quickest. Toweling off then throwing on her jean bermuda shorts and three-quarter sleeve shirt Anne made her way down stairs wet hair quickly brushed away from her face.

The aroma of freshly made pancakes and bacon hit her nose and her mouth started to water. But her appetite failed when she walked into the kitchen. Sitting at the table reading a newspaper was her father and Brad was leaning against the counter on the far side away from her with a plate of steaming food in his hands, which he was thoroughly ignoring for his gaze was set on the girl who stood next to him.

She was shorter than Anne but that wasn't saying much since most other females were. Blond hair that almost shimmered in the sunlight cascaded over her slender shoulders stopping near the middle of her back. Her face which had turned toward Anne was breathtakingly beautiful with slim features and iridescent, violet eyes.

Anne felt her mouth fall open when she heard the female stranger talk. "Hello, you must be Anna-Lorraine. I'm Lerata Weald."

Lerata's voice was like bells and chimes, something Anne had never heard before. She remembered she was staring and snapped her mouth shut then opened it again. "Uh, hey."

"Anne, usually you're more talkative than just two syllables," Mr. Faysher said from where he was setting down the newspaper. "Are you sure your feeling alright?"

"Yeah, Dad. I'm fine." She assured him feeling embarrassed that her father had asked that in front of a guest. Then she turned to the unnervingly stunning girl standing next to her brother. Slightly confused she remembered that she was Braden's gi_rlfriend._ She looked far too innocent to be the kind of girl he would date.

"Lerata... that's a nice name. But as to mine, it's just Anne. Anna-Lorraine is too big of a mouthful to say all the time."

She was treated with a big smile from the blonde. "It's so unique and pretty though."

_Yes, far too innocent looking _and _sounding for someone who caught Braden's eye. This has to be some joke he's playing on me. _She frowned to herself and sighed. Then she shrugged embarrassed all over again as she moved to the cupboard and took down a plate and helped herself to the food sitting on the stove.

She glanced over when Braden's girlfriend spoke. "Your brother tells me that you play the piano. Actually," Lerata said with a mischievous smile aimed at Braden, "he brags about how you've played all over Illinois including in Chicago."

Anne looked over at her brother disbelievingly. "The only thing I have ever heard my brother brag about was his football skills. Which in my opinion are lacking indefinitely."

"Anne," Mr. Faysher said in a warning voice.

She shrugged and said, "Sorry Lerata. Sibling rivalry. You know how it goes."

"Actually I don't," Lerata said glancing down at her feet. Was that sadness Anne saw gather in her strangely violet eyes?

Braden reached out a hand and gently took Lerata's. Brushing his fingers over the young woman's knuckles and with his eyes on Anne he said, "Her sister disappeared when she was really young. Just last year her family heard that she had been killed in Washington. Unlike us Annie, they never got the chance to have an argument with each other."

"Oh," was all she said, properly chastised. Anne knew how it hurt to lose someone close to you, but she could not be sure if it was better or worse since for Lerata it had been someone she never had the chance to know even though she had every right to.

Anne looked down at the plate of food in her hands. She pulled out a counter stool with her foot and plopped on it as the other three people commenced with the conversation they had been having before she came in. She chewed silently letting her gaze move to Braden's and Lerata's intertwined hands as she listened to her brother's words.

"So you're proposing that Lerata and I hang out with my little sister?"

"Well since I have to go into the office, I thought it was the perfect chance for you two girls to get to know each other." Anne looked up at her father's green eyes as he went on. "Not to mention it's great practice for the next big holiday. By then hopefully being in each other's presence won't make them bite one another's heads off or toss pies at each other."

"I think it's a great idea." This comment came from Lerata who was looking at Braden with delight on her beautiful features. "Hanging out, not tossing pies at each other."

Anne was astounded to see the wide grin that spread across her brother's face as he met the young woman's eyes.

"Well what do you think we should do?"

*****

Sitting on the side of the ice skating rink fiddling with the edge of her worn out shoulder bag she used as her purse, Anne realized belatedly why Braden had wanted to go there. The slippery ice gave the couple the perfect opportunities to touch or brush up against each other. The dim lights and different types of music blaring from the speakers blocked anyone from being able to catch their words to each other or see the way Lerata and him looked at each other. They did not pay an ounce of attention to anything else, including a silent and bored-nearly-to-tears sister. Anne finally got up and left, sick of their ogling and being cold.

Her brother had had girlfriends before but none were like Lerata. The girl was incredible and her moods seemed to be contagious. Anne had never seen her brother smile or laugh as much in his whole life as she was seeing now.

Ice skating at Carlson Ice Arena would not have been the first choice of things to do, what with her horrible tendency to end up on her butt or back after tripping or slipping, but her brother had been pigheaded as always. And Anne, trying to see how far she could make it without going to look for a pie to shove in his face, had agreed. So after Robert Faysher had left for work they had piled in to Braden's vehicle and headed to do something Lerata had never experienced before. Honestly Anne was starting to think the blonde woman had been deprived all her life and had to have escapes her overbearing parents just to go to college. Apparently after Lerata's sister disappeared Mr. and Mrs. Weald had paid much more attention to the whereabouts and activities of their lone daughter.

"Anne!"

She was knocked out of her reminiscing by an excited voice behind her. She turned and had to brace herself as a short body came bounding over to her. She looked around and recognized her friend Dinaya with her brown skin and eyes that shone as she smiled.

"What are you doing here, Naya?" Anne asked. "I didn't think you were one for the ice."

Dinaya smiled and shrugged. "I was bored and Lucien had no other plans for the day."

Lucien was the fair haired, pale skin boy- more a young man- who walked up behind the dark skinned female. He smiled briefly in greeting before turning to take Dinaya's hand in his large one.

_Great. Another couple to deal with. _Immediately Anne scolded herself for such bitter thoughts. Dinaya Raffolding was one of those people that could annoy the hell out of you one moment and then the next be the best friend anyone could wish for.

After a few minutes of friendly chatting and catching up on the latest news in each other's lives she said good bye to Dinaya and Lucien, leaving them to go skate about on the ice. She made her way to the front of the building not sure why she was heading in that direction. Anne paused briefly at a pop machine and got a Pepsi. She was in need of the energy its caffeine would offer.

She did not know when the rink closed but she did know the air conditioning in there was set way too high. She pushed the glass doors open and was met with humid air. It wasn't that big of a difference but and she could almost feel her hair starting to frizz but she did not particularly care. The sky was still cloudy but rain had not fallen since earlier that morning leaving the many benches along the front sidewalk dry and available.

She felt compelled walk over and sit on the bench at the farthest end of the sidewalk. The reason why she did not just sit on a nearer bench to where she had come out of the ice arena was lost as she folded her legs and alighted on the metal seat, twisting the cap off her pop. About to take a sip something unforeseen stopped her.

"Anne."

Her hand froze with the bottle of pop half way to her mouth as this low voice, very different from Dinaya's excited one, met her ears. Goosebumps rippled across her skin, no doubt a result from the sudden fear and unease that now coursed through her veins. That explained why she had felt the need to come outside and sit on this particular bench. Somehow she managed to lower the refreshment away from her mouth and make her voice work.

"I was wondering why I felt the need to come out here. No doubt that was your doing." Slowly she turned around. "Wasn't it Garrett?"

There he stood, unexpectedly next to her and the bench in his worn out jean shorts and a black hoodie thrown on that contrasted with his pale skin. His dark hair was hidden by an equally dark Volcom beanie. She recognized it as a the one she had given to him a few Christmases ago. He had never been phased by the weather no matter how hot or cold. His blue eyes were still as startling and captivating as before but they held the hidden and silent potential of flaring silver at a moment's notice.

She stared at him not knowing what to say. So words blurted out, on their own accord. "Why are you here?"

"I told you I would see you later." He did not move toward her but stayed frozen to his spot on the side walk. "I did leave you a note."

"Yeah, I know. I found it." Anne slowly replaced the cap on her bottle of pop needing something to do with her hands while her eyes roved the area around her. The main entrance to the ice rink was not in view. No one could see the bench she sat on unless they were driving through the parking lot and then they would not have been paying attention to anything except an open and potential space to park in. Escape routes were only two choices, up the sidewalk to the ice skating rink doors or out in the parking lot. It was worth a shot either way.

"If you'd excuse me," she said, abruptly pushing away from the bench and starting to walk nearly running in the direction she had come from. But then he was there clamping a hand down on her shoulder, holding her frozen. It did not hurt but it held all the intentions of making her stop.

"Anne I need to finish talking to you now that the risk of you collapsing is less."

She gritted her teeth and forced herself from grabbing his arm and twisting it in a way that would make him yell for mercy. Well any human would have yelled for mercy. Instead she said, "As I recall it was you who caused my collapse."

"Well I promise I won't do anything to scare you enough into not remembering how to breathe." He exerted a little pressure on her shoulder and suddenly her legs started to move forward but not in the direction she wanted to go.

"I could yell you know. Someone would be bound to hear it," she said in a heated voice as he propelled her down the sidewalk that lead to the parking lot. She spotted his black truck instantly and knew that was where they were headed. "Technically you're kidnapping me by taking me somewhere I don't want to go with someone I'd rather not be with."

But as she made this threat something in the back of her mind was telling her not to make a scene, that everything was alright and perfectly fine.

"We both know you won't scream," Garrett said quietly with his lips centimeters away from her ear.

"But I'm sure as hell tempted." She said shaking her head and forcing the falsely soothing voice out of her head.

She saw Garrett look at her strangely from the corner of his eye like he could not believe something. It dawned on her. "Your doing that. You're making me not want to scream or fight." She tried to wrench her arm away and he let her go surprising her so much that she almost tripped.

"It's either I let go or you dislocate your shoulder." She heard him say this as they stopped next to his big truck. They were shielded from anyone coming or going from the main entrance of the recreational facility.

"You didn't have to manhandle me in the first place," Anne snapped rubbing her shoulder. "Or use your freaky telepathy power to make me move. If you'd just ask nicely, maybe say please or something, I would've come with you. You didn't have to take away my free will for albeit just for a short time."

He looked at her like she was crazy. At the moment she felt like she was. Here in the middle of the day, in the parking lot outside a heavily touristy place she was having a conversation with a _vampire _for god's sake_. _

"Will you please not say it like that?" Garrett asked through clenched teeth making it hard for her to hear the words. "It's not like I chose to be what I am. And could you not think it so loud? I'm not the only Nighter around here."

"I wasn't exactly aware that my mind had the need for volume control," she retorted but in a quieter voice then before. "Not to mention that if you would get out of my mind you wouldn't know what I'm thinking."

"Anne, I have always been able to read your mind. Ever since I met you I've been in your head. And you know what?" He shifted and when she blinked he was directly in front of her. She took a step back and found herself pressed up against his truck with his handsome face and suddenly silver eyes inches from her own. "You're in my mind every second of every minute of every day as well."

*******Author's Note*******

This is my longest chapter.

Yes, that is no excuse for my lateness to update.

No, I have not forgotten the requests of some romantic actions between Garrett and Anne.

But guess what?

That's next!!!!! (I just have to get around to typing the whole thing up.)

Plus I'll give brownie points to whoever figures out just who Lerata Weald is related to. (Not like it should be that hard or anything....)


	8. The Heart Taken By Storm

This is much more.... I don't know...romantic? I mean, look at the chapter's name. You were bound to realize SOMETHING was to happen sooner or later.

So please take in to account that Anne is still **completely** **clueless** to the soulmate principle stuff.

************

_She took a step back and found herself pressed up against Garrett's truck with his handsome face and suddenly silver eyes inches from her own. "You're always in my thoughts every second of every minute of every day as well."_

************

Had the world stopped? It sure felt like it. Everything was suddenly quiet around Garrett's truck like it was in its own bubble that filtered out sound and time. No person passed them and the nearby highway that ran in front of the ice rink and its noises were inaudible. That is until Anne spoke.

"What did you say?" She stared up through the inches between their faces not at all put off by his changed facial expressions.

"You heard what I said," he whispered down to her. "Not a moment goes by in the day that I don't think about you Anna-Lorraine."

_Not a moment goes by..._ He had said in his note_, You're far too important to me... _And now he was so close. Mere centimeters separated their faces. That paired with the nearness made thinking and comprehending impossible.

"Can you please back off Garrett?" she said trying to act like her heart had not jumped up in pace or shivers had traveled up her spine at the tone of his voice. Ignoring his silver eyes and menacing expression she went to shove him away.

As if controlled by some super reflex, which he technically was, Garrett reacted instantly. He brought his arms up and caught hers as they started to push on his chest.

Big mistake on both their parts.

The moment his long, pale fingers grasped her wrists they both froze. Anne's hands were now held immobile while pressing against his surprisingly strong and hard abdomen. Her eyes widened in shock.

She gasped as her anger simmered up and popped revealing something that she could not place. She could feel his soft breath on her cheeks as he exhaled. She herself was unable to pull a breath in to relieve the sudden dizziness that bombarded her. Currents of sparks seemed to fizz up Anne's skin and tickle her mind, all of them radiating from where their skin touched.

"This happened before... last night in the truck," she heard herself say in a distant voice. She swallowed unable to move away but knowing she would not want to if she could. "Is this some vampire power or something?"

His voice was just as faint but somehow she heard it. "Not _usually_, no. But it's definitely something we need to talk about."

"T-talk? How, when I can barely see?" And it was true. She was blinking rapidly trying to clear her vision of an obtrusively golden hue that was looming over her sight. The only clear thing was Garrett's face which was just as close as it was before, if not closer.

Anne suddenly found out why half the females at their school were completely smitten with Garrett. How had she never noticed the length of his eyelashes? Or how the curves of his lips and the arc of his cheek bones accentuated his sharp, handsome features? And finally, how could she have ever missed just how deep and penetrating his eyes were even as they were slowly fading, shade by shade, from silver back to the brilliant, piercing blue she had known since the two of them were kids?

Her world was shrinking to focus only on the being in front of her and every minute detail she had overlooked. .

"No, not here," Garrett said abruptly and, with much effort, let go of her wrists.

His voice and the absence of his skin on hers jerked her away from the cliff she teetered on and back to reality. Her arms fell to her sides as she blinked bleary eyes and stared around her. The sky was still grey with clouds, the truck was still against her back. The ground had not really split open to form the crevice which Anne had felt like she was falling in to. Nothing was out of the ordinary except for her fluttering heartbeat and babbling mind.

"Um..." she said feeling like something important and life altering had happened and she missed the meaning of it all. "Care to explain that?"

For a moment he just looked like he had never seen anything like her, almost as if he was in awe of her. "Anne..." he breathed her name out like a prayer.

They were still impossibly close but not touching anymore. Was he even breathing? Of course he was, the slight brush of air as he breathed out caressed her suddenly-hypersensitive lips.

And then he was gone moving away and opening the door of his truck gesturing for her to get in. She looked at him with hurt and confusion mingling on her face. He sighed and hung his head, shielding his eyes from hers. "I will explain it all to you. I need to tell you before I die from keeping it to myself. I just don't want to tell you in the middle of a parking lot. Things might get... intense."

Anne could not help but frown in worry at the pained look that crossed his pale face. She took a hesitant step towards him. On its own accord her right hand lifted to touch his cheek. But when she saw the way he half-winced she shifted so it rested on the open door. She pulled herself up to sit in the passenger's seat. Chagrin pulsing down her veins and not meeting his eyes she said, "Well, we could go to my house. No one is there. My dad's at work till late this afternoon and Braden and his girlfriend are too engrossed in themselves to notice I left."

"Annie, why are you mad?" He said still standing at the opened door.

"I'm not mad. What makes you think I'm mad?" She spoke too fast and mentally kicked herself for it. _Stupid, Anne. Really stupid._

"You're not stupid but you _are_ mad," Garrett said and she wanted to stick her tongue out at him like they were in fourth grade again.

"Damn it Garrett!" That definitely was _not_ fourth grade. "Get in and start driving before I decide to walk home."

He did as he was told, for once, and in the blink of an eye he was gone from her side of the truck, the door slamming closed just as he was opening the driver's side door. Before she registered any of it, the truck's engine roared to life, and they were already turning quickly out of the ice rink's parking lot.

He kept his eyes on the road but she kept her eyes on him.

"I think," she said breaking the silence with a thoughtful glow in her evergreen eyes, "I can finally forgive you for not doing the blood drive with Katie and me last year. I mean with your-"

"What?" He said abruptly. It was getting annoying at how he kept interrupting her and she shifted to glare at him.

"What? Forgive me for being surprised. You just made a _joke_. About me and..." He asked taking a turn around the corner on to the high way a little too fast and making her seat belt jerk across her shoulder. "So...wait, Anne. You're okay with this? With me being-"

"A vampire?" she finished his sentence in unison with him. She went on with a nonchalant shrug, "You should know. Aren't you the one who can read my mind?"

Garrett grinned, just the smallest hitch of the corner of his mouth. "That doesn't guarantee I'll get coherent answers though."

"My thoughts only need to be coherent to me, myself, and I," Anne said quietly trying to not sound suddenly edgy. She played with a string hanging off her sleeve and said, "Garrett, I'm sorry but I have to ask. You drink... blood right?"

"Where exactly is this going?" He asked instead of answering the question. She glared pointedly at him and he swiftly glanced over at her and then back to the road. When he sighed, she knew he had found out what she was trying to ask. "Anne, yes I need human blood to survive and live on but I have never killed anyone in my quest to get it."

She knew she let her relief show on her face as she let out the breath she had been holding and sat back against the chair. She found, with a smug smile, that her head did not twinge when it hit the seat. The evidence of lasts night's showdown were fading. Well mostly. There was still the two men who tried to rob the corner store out there on the streets. Wait. Zeek had said something about monsters last night. He had directed this towards Anne's friend who was sitting next to her right now.

"Garrett aren't humans not supposed to know about the Night World? What happens if they find out?" She knew something had struck a chord in him when he stiffened in his seat and his grip tightened on the steering wheel.

She was about to tell him to calm down when her cell phone started singing in her bag. With both anger and relief at the interruption soaring through her veins, Anne dug it out and flipped the electronic device open without even looking at the caller ID. "Hello?"

"Anne, thank god." It was Braden and he sounded breathless. "Where did you go?"

"I got bored watching you and Lerata skate." She said simply keeping her eyes on the young man- vampire? who had turned to drive down the road to her house.

"Where are you now?"

"On my way home."

"She's not walking is she?" Anne heard Lerata's voice in the background.

"No I'm not walking," she said watching Garrett still. He had glanced over at her as she said this.

"Well then how-"

"I got a friend to give me a ride," she interjected. "I'm not a fan of walking multiple miles when the sky looks like it's about to burst open and drown the earth. I'm not a fan of walking multiple miles period."

"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?" Braden demanded.

Anne sighed as the truck came to stop in the middle of her driveway. "Because I didn't want to ruin your time together. I felt like the third wheel."

"Anne-" he started but stopped when she went on, finally out of patience. The longer the two siblings talked, the longer it would take till Garrett explained what had happened in the parking lot.

"No, Brad, it's fine. I'm good with being at home and letting you and Lerata spend time around the city together. I'll be practicing piano for a while so don't try to call me 'cause I won't answer. Good-bye." And with that she shut the phone.

"Your awfully brisk with him today." Garrett observed from where he sat, back ram-rod straight staring out the front window. Before she could respond he asked "Who's Lerata?"

"Lerata Weald is Braden's girlfriend. Didn't I tell you that? They go to college- What?" Her sentence was interrupted when Garrett flashed her a startled glance before settling into a uneasy expression. Someone who did not know better would have missed it but Anne was one of the few people who _did _know better. "What are you staring at me like that for?"

He tilted his head to the side with a curious and contemplating look. "This Lerata.... does she have long blond hair and... violet eyes? With a small and slender build?"

Sudden resentment for the young woman he was describing unfolded and bloomed in Anne's chest to thicken in her throat. She cleared it and tried not to think of that subject since driving did not seem to hinder the ability of reading minds. The last thing she wanted Garrett to know was she harbored feelings that seemed an awful lot like jealousy. "Yeah, she does. Do you know her?"

"Vaguely... I meet her at a club I went to on the odd weekend when I was younger."

"Huh. You were never the partying type of guy. I had to drag you to Jerome's sweet sixteen a few years back and even then you didn't want to go." She released the seat belt and opened the truck's door before pausing and glancing back at him. "What club?"

He did not answer but he stared ahead clenching and unclenching his hands on the steering wheel whether in nervousness or impatience, she could not tell which. So she stepped out and shut the door. She walked around to his side of the truck and asked him through his open window. "Are you coming?"

"I don't want to have anyone see my truck in the driveway so I'm going to take it home. I'll be back soon. Five to ten minutes tops I swear. And Anne," he said making her pause as she went to step away. He leaned closer through the window and gently, like a butterfly's wing against her skin, stroked a gentle finger down her cheek. Every nerve ending tingled and sparked on the path the caress created. His eyes flared with a mysterious emotion as he whispered, "I'm sorry."

It took a moment for her to realize what he had said; her brain was muddle again. "For w-what?"

"For never giving you a choice." He turned away and revved the engine. Anne moved out of the way in a daze and watched the vehicle go off down the road.

She strode to and unlocked the front door with a key she took from her pocket. The house was empty and quiet, too much so that shivers were cascading down her spine because of the eerie feeling of desolation that assailed her. Zodia the cat did not even come there to greet her. Anne hung up her bag on a hook in the front hall and kicked off her shoes, shoving them to the wall so no one would trip over them on their way inside. She felt baffled and confused as she walked like a ghost through the living room of the house.

What had happened? Three times now had she felt like a conductor for electricity when her skin had brushed Garrett's. And that strange falling feeling she had when standing still, that was definitely _not_ normal. It was not unpleasant at all, but surprising enough to scare her. Something had whispered like a lone note of music floating on the wind about a circuit the two of them created. And now for the next five minutes she was left alone to brood around the house wondering just why her life had suddenly gotten so complicated.

Somehow, she made it to the back of the house without tripping on anything in her dazed state of mind and was about to walk into the kitchen when she passed the doorway to a room where Anne's pride and joy lingered. She paused in the entry and leaned against the wall.

A black and sleek baby grand piano dominated the room while shelves of books and walls covered in maps surrounded it. The study had been her favorite room ever since she was old enough to walk let alone read or actually play the piano. Her mother had been a pianist and had been teaching Anne ever since she could remember. Even when Sylvia Faysher had gotten sick, she and her daughter had continued to play for each other and the other family members. It had been an outlet for delight, pain, a respite from boredom, or just a reason to live. Next to being at her piano the only time and place when she was comfortable in her own skin was when she spent time with Garrett.

God, now even tiniest thoughts were meandering their way back to the young man- vampire? She groaned as she walked to the piano bench. Garrett is what he is and he's never done anything to intentionally hurt her. Did that mean she had to refer to him as a vampire instead of a man now? No. Why would she? Years and years had gone by and the only bad thing she could say about him was his dislike for Danny Bars or Micheal Harner and the other boys she had dated for a while in the past. Anne could not fault him for being the blood-sucking, mind reading vampire who had taken her life and heart by storm.

Wait_. _

Did she just say _heart_? When did her feelings for Garrett become anything other than friendly? She bit her lip and knew the answer to that immediately. The minute she had decided to trust him even after he had showed Anne what he really was.... At the time when most people would have been screaming for a wooden stake to be sharpened, she had realized he meant absolutely everything to her as more than a friend or brotherly figure.

With that unexpected realization prominent in her thoughts Anne instinctively placed her fingers against the piano keys and started to play a song she knew well since it was her favorite. Ludwig van Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_ slowly started to fill up the air with its reverberating and haunting melody that carried her away on its current. Months, years, or seconds could have gone by or the world could have exploded and she would not have noticed. Any thoughts of the Night World or growing feelings for a certain vampiric guy were pushed to a small recess in her mind to be contemplated when Garrett returned.

Which happened to be just then.

*******Author's Note*******

I know, I know. I said I was giving you more romantic things but this chapter got so long I decided to cut it in half. The next half of this will be posted the afternoon of Friday Sept. 18th. And if it isn't well you can kick my butt later.


	9. Soulmate

Hello. I promised it and hey, I try and keep my promises. It's later than I would have wanted to put it up but hey, I can't control the sun.

By the way.....I have failed to put that many disclaimers in this thing....so I guess that was one.... just in case I'll add that I don't own anything that's L.J. Smith's.

**********

_Any thoughts of the Night World or growing feelings for a certain vampiric guy were pushed to a small recess in her mind to be contemplated when Garrett returned. _

_Which happened to be just then._

**********

"You're amazing," a voice breathed out behind her.

Anne gasped and whipped around with her fingers flying from the piano and its sound cutting off. The last lonely strain reverberated around the room as she stared at Garrett. "How did you get in?"

"You didn't relock the front door," he said simply.

_"_Oh_. _Well how long have you been standing there?"

"Not long," he answered vaguely. One moment he was by the entry way to the hall and the next he was alongside the bench on which she sat. Slowly keeping eye contact he sat on the edge of the seat next to her. She swallowed a gasp and looked down as he said, "But it was enough to make me regret missing your piano recital at the Coronado Theater a few months back."

"I'm not really that good," she mumbled staring at her hands that now lay limply in her lap.

"That's bull, Annie, and you know it," he said strongly looking at her and silently urging Anne to meet his eyes. When she did not do so he glanced down with an absorbed look on his face. He reached out slowly and hit a few keys mirroring a perfect C minor chord. Then he moved along the black and white surface playing a measure that sounded a lot like _Clair de Lune_.

Anne glanced up and away raising an eyebrow. "Don't tell me your thinking about taking up piano playing?"

"No," he said quietly. "I don't know much more than that. Skateboarding vampire here remember? Piano and those don't usually go together."

They stayed quiet, not meeting each others gaze. Anne found her heart nearly jumping out of her chest with each breath Garrett took. In the corner of her eye she saw his chest rise and fall, clearly remembering what it felt like to have her hands against it. She even felt her fingers twitch at the memory and to hide the movement she placed her fingers back to the keys letting _Moonlight Sonata_ wind around the two of them quietly, not as boisterous as before.

"Are you going to explain about the parking lot thing and last night now?" She asked finally speaking as she released her foot off one of the pedals under the piano. Something made her keep going and add, "Or am I going to have to touch your hand again since that's what seems to set it off?"

"Anne," he said with a sigh. It was so much like the way he had said her name in the parking lot and goose bumps spiraled up her arms. "Can we... wait? Just for a second I want to pretend I'm human and listen to you play. It's always calmed me down."

"Music is great for doing things like that, but I wouldn't know if it effected vampires the same way." She said this trying and almost failing to recall the next notes in the song when Garrett stretched his long legs out in front of him under the piano and his thigh brushed hers. The fabric of their clothes could not block the energy that streamed up and down Anne's leg from the spot of the graze.

"It does and it doesn't," he answered shrugging casually seeming unaffected the way she was. "It all really depends on the mind set of the listener. Besides we aren't all that different from you humans."

_Yeah except for the super-human powers, the need for blood, pale, smooth skin, with stunning eyes that- _Anne felt herself blush when she realized he no doubt was hearing this and any previous thoughts. Being aware that he has been able to hear her inner thinkings for years made her shift uncomfortably.

"I try to give you as much privacy with your thoughts as I can," Garrett said tapping his foot against the floor with the faint sound seeming to keep beat with her heart's pace. "But it always drove me crazy because your thoughts were so... colorful and intelligent but you never shared them with the rest of the world. And your mind always had a certain drawing force to it..."

"Um, well," she said following a bridge to the last few measures of the sonata, "Is your _moment_ done? Because the piano isn't going anywhere but I feel like I'm about to explode with curiosity."

After a moment he said, "Just promise no screaming or fainting and to hear me out till the end."

She sighed matching his quiet tone. "I've listened to you before, what's one more time going to do?"

Anne felt his gaze on her face but she refused to meet his blue eyes with her green ones. She did not want him to see the fear and anxiety in her expression or the strange hope that soared in her chest. He shifted slightly both overly aware that there was only a centimeter between their bodies. A space that seemed to grow even smaller when Garrett spoke.

"What do you think the words true love mean?"

The sudden question caught her off guard and she turned slightly to look at him from out of a corner of her eye. "True love...?"

He waited no doubt expecting the sarcastic remark that Anne always gave when she was asked a personal question.

It never came. Something held her tongue still as her mind ticked away. Thoughts, phrases, and words blew by but none of them meant enough to be used. So when she found one it surprised her that it was far longer than a single word. "Needing another person to live each day but then at the same time knowing it's a completely mutual feeling. And being able to talk to the other person with no fear of judgment or secrets and not having to compete to have their attention since it's on them and only them already." She suddenly became aware that she was babbling and felt heat rush up to her cheeks. "Why are you asking?"

He would not quite meet her eyes when she finally looked at him. "Well, there's this thing that has been happening a lot lately with vampires and other Nighters. It's actually happening a lot in my own family, the Redfern's branch of the Night World."

"And what is it?" Anne asked playing with the keys in front of them. She did not look at Garrett though as a faint tune started to sound from the piano almost on its own accord.

"It's called the soulmate principle."

"Soulmate? Isn't that just like true love?" She asked unsure she heard right. Her fingers wavered over the piano keys, making her miss a note. He stayed silent. She felt the need to tell him the pauses between his talking were really starting to irk her. But it was overpowered by realization. She heard herself answer her own question. "No, it's not the same. You're talking about being destined to be together, in love with each other regardless of who or what the two participants are... that kind of soulmate thing right?"

He took a breath. "Yes. It's exactly that, only with Nighters it's slightly different. There's this connection on a deeper level that binds the two souls together mentally and physically and..." he stopped searching for the right words. "And it's uncontrollable... overpowering." He paused once more before whispering, "And sometimes depending on the people it involves, it's a death sentence."

She stopped playing the large instrument altogether then and stared at him. She tried to ask a question finding her voice was stuck in her throat, "How-how so?"

"Well there are two laws of the Night World. I mentioned them right?" She half nodded and half shook her head.

"You said it's against the laws for humans to know about the Night World." She swallowed hard, feeling the blood drain out of her face. "And I guess that answers my question about what happens if a human finds out." She stared up at him not wanting to believe the truth of the situation. "If you knew telling me would put me in danger why did you do it?"

"Because, Anne, I broke the second rule _before_ that." He was looking down at his long fingers that were clenched in fists against his legs, guilt obvious in his features. Then he looked up and their eyes locked. It was like staring in to infinite, one that was colored a deep clear blue, seeing past the layers of lies and trickery into the very depth of the other person's soul. "I broke the rule that says to never, _ever_ fall in love with a human. And the soulmate principle makes it impossible not to do just that."

She was struck dumb and she knew it, feeling her mouth fall open.

"You're not saying…" Anne asked refusing to chase down the nagging thought at the back of her mind, to where she knew it was heading. He just looked at her with hopeless eyes. She pushed away from the piano stumbling blindly out of the study. Disbelief, shock, excitement, every emotion under the sun flowed to the tips of her fingers and toes. "Soulmates…."

He was in front of her instantly forcing her to stop moving or collide with him. She did some of both, stopping in her stride but tripping and ending up having to be caught by his strong arms.

He seemed momentarily surprised to suddenly find her in his arms but he went on determination easily decipherable on his face. "I won't lie Anne; this caught me off guard but I thought about it and I can't say I'm sorry. Okay parts of it I'm sorry for but if I was honest with myself I'd admit to being in love with you since I met you."

There was no way on earth that she was going to ignore the sensations his hold caused on her body. She stood there breathing hard, leaning against him and staring up in to his impossibly close eyes. "Garrett, I can't... can't...." she did not get the chance to answer.

How was it that Anne kept finding herself pressed up against things? First it was the truck against her back and now it was her own home's hallway wall behind her with the very same person as before that standing in front of her now. The only difference now was they were completely pressed against each other chest to chest with his hands on either side of her body.

"Can't what Anne?" He asked glaring down into her eyes. Her heart was pounding and she felt his right next to hers doing the same thing. "Can't believe a monster like me could love someone so amazing like you? Can't believe-"

"Garrett, you are not a monster," she said bringing up her hands and putting them on his face reveling in his smooth and pale skin. It caught him by surprise and made him shut his mouth. Finding her voice again she said, "I can't believe it took you so long to _admit_ that." She looked him straight in the eye seeing a million things and then only one at the same time. Then she saw nothing when her eyes shut as he kissed her.

She felt herself gasp in surprise as Garrett's lips moved on hers. They were incredibly soft and gentle but electricity poured through creating the missing heat and ardor between them.

_Oh…my…God._

That was all Anne could think before the golden hue was back only now it was behind her closed eyelids, illuminating the deepest places of her mind. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. She did not want her life and secrets poured out before someone else so intimately, but then she recalled Garrett _was_ her life and he already knew her secrets.

And it was not just her whose thoughts and memories were suddenly open to scrutiny. Imagined locks sprung from doors that flew open giving all access to Garrett's mind. She shrank away just slightly before being caught up in a whirlwind of emotions.

Contentment, joy, worry, guilt, and fear were waves that constantly bombarded her as she was sucked under by the tide. She could feel her own emotions, similar to those, easily and clearly but somehow, by one way or another, she knew it was Garrett she was feeling now.

_Why is he guilty? _She wondered staring around her through the blinding golds and dark silvers that had started to flare in her mind's eye wondering just where Garrett was and for another matter, where she was.

She heard his voice sound through her ears and her mind. _I'm being completely selfish, that's why I feel guilty. I don't want to hurt you and feeling this way does just that._

_Well that's stupid. Why do the... _she found the answer she was looking for in one of the darker flecks that were in front of her eyes. _The Night World Counsel not want there to have connections like this between others? Why forbid something so amazing?_

_I think it scares them that they aren't as powerful as they would like, but... they're still fairly powerful._ He sounded so sad and upset that her heart was hurting each time it beat.

_Garrett, please come here. I want to see you. _She looked back and forth trying to see through the blinding lights. _Don't hide from me now. Please._

Finally there he was standing with his hands thrust in to what could have been his pockets and head tilted to the side with her favorite half grin on his soft, alluring mouth. _I have never been able to hide from you, Annie. _

_Never thought you could. _She thought with a small smile. Then she asked, _Where are we?_

_Our minds, _he said not looking away from her, _Our souls. I'm not sure. All I know is that I like it._

_I like **you**. _Anne knew if they were anywhere but where they were now she would have blushed and probably tripped over her feet as she said this. At the moment all she did was reach out towards him and found that he was reaching out for her too.

A silver cord thrummed between them as they suddenly were falling forward to a reality that could never have existed outside of there.

They stayed that way just.... _existing_ in and out of each other, together for an unknown amount of time until stiff muscles broke through Anne's heaven. She unthinkingly groaned at the dull pain that was pulsing up her legs breaking the golden web around her and Garrett.

Blinking she glanced around not quite registering her surroundings but instead focusing on the man who was holding her gently in his arms. "Gary...." she tried to say but her weak breathing did not allow her to utter his whole name. "How long have we been... have we been standing here?"

The watery sunlight that had been leaking through the clouds and windows around the house had turned red with the sunset. Shadows were long and dark, the house still silent. She could not seem to follow one thought to another all of them strewn every which way.

"Garrett?" She asked not taking her eyes off a splash of red orange sunlight on the opposite wall.

"Anne your house phone is ringing." He whispered, his lips brushing her cheek with each word. He moved to let go of her so she could answer it, for it had occurred to her that a piercing ring_ was_ sounding from the direction of the Faysher's kitchen.

"I don't care," she whispered turning and pulling him back to fit her lips on his once more. _The machine can pick it up._

He was stronger than her, she knew this, but he seemed just as eager to explore this new territory between them as she was. And as Anne let the golden glow consume her, everything felt right and nothing could have ruined the moment.

Not even when the echo of the answering machine could be heard or when a voice leaving a message could be faintly understood.

"Hello, this is Officer Trent from Rockford Emergency Response Unit. I'm calling to inform you that Mr. Robert Faysher has been in an accident--"

*******Author's Notes*******

TA DA!!!

Okay. So I'm last person who would know how policemen tell family members that their loved ones have been in an accident. Heck. I don't even know if it _is_ the police or that an Emergency Response Unit exists. At least by that name.

Questions or comments I'm open to anything.


	10. Torture

Thank You. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Sorry. I had another moment. It happens when I write for long periods of time and when I feel the need to express my thanks to each and everyone of you readers.

Did I say thank you? Just one more time.... Thank you to each and every person who reviewed my story or put it on their favorite story or author alert lists. Or any other list under the sun for that matter.

By the way.... and don't hate me... this is a **Garrett** POV and it happens BEFORE the last chapter. It's what happened when Gary went to drop his truck off back at his house. Trust me it all plays out. And hopefully you'll not hate me for making you suffer with the suspense from the last chapter for too long.

I'm sorry if I do torture you with this; though, I wrote this up before I even knew where the last chapter was even going and I just can't let this sit all alone in my documents when I really want it to be part of my fanfic.

*************

The minute he whipped out of the Faysher's driveway leaving Anne standing there, Garrett was an absolute wreck. Oh, of course no one would have been able to tell that by just looking at him. Over the years he had perfected the art of putting on a deceiving facade so much so that no one but he, himself could know what he was really thinking or feeling. And now he was feeling completely and utterly hopeless.

What was he going to say? Nothing? Everything? He had promised Anne that he would tell the truth but the truth was so harsh there was no doubt she would hate him for it. He loved her, he knew that but his love would get the both of them killed. With the Night World laws being broken how long would it be before the Council found out? He had to stop this before his feelings lead them to their doom.

But how could he do such a thing when there was a great chance that she loved him back. That lone thought gave him the smallest ounce of hope for the future. With Anne there, the world always seemed simpler. With her there was nothing else to worry about or to contemplate. It was an immense change from the hectic lives most vampires lead what with all the lying and sneaking around and hunting.... but was peace and contentment really worth dying for?

Garrett made a face at himself when he glanced in the rearview mirror for he realized that he has had the same argument with himself many times before. Whenever Breccan was being the interfering, nosy creature she was and saying things in the hearing range of their parents he would ask himself all kinds of questions like the last one. Or when his own mother started talking about how distant cousins of the his in the Redfern family had started to betray the Night World, he would silently think about how his view on humans had changed in the last twelve years of his life.

And it was all because of the curious green eyed, brown haired, long legged girl who had the urge to sit under the tree with him during recess after he had instinctively reached out and caught that damn teepee project of hers.

Besides, if she did not return the same intense feelings at least Anne liked him as more than an average, every day friend. Even if it was just as a brother or like a close cousin Garrett would be content with that.

He was pulling up to a stop sign on a road that was closer to his house than Anne's when he banged his hands on his steering wheel unable to hold back the natural strength that he had as a vampire. The leather-covered, hard material caved and reshaped itself under the force of his fists where Garrett then scowled at the new contour of it. His father was not going to be happy when he saw this. And it turned out that he was lucky, for the intersection was empty because if anyone had seen him cause such damage to the car's part very uncomfortable questions would have been asked.

As it was the frustration that was boiling in his body was making him want to smash something big and heavy into a small pile of scrape metal.

Who was he kidding? Garrett would never be content with just friendship. Never to feel her body in his arms and to trace her inviting lips with a soft finger. And never to feel Anne's pulse on her neck as he gently laid a kiss against it or-

"Stop it Garrett Redfern. Stop it now," he growled under his breath as he silently wished, not for the first time, that his vampire powers did _not_ give him a perfect memory. That way he would not have been able to recall any and all beautiful features his friend had. Never before in his whole life had he been so consumed by thoughts of Anne.

To distract himself for the next few minutes till he got to his house, Garrett thought back on the night before. There was the still the looming threat of Zeek knowing about Nighters and the Night World. Garrett would love to go now and find the lowly creature and commence to make him pay for what his decision of trying to rob the corner store had lead to. In the back of his mind Garrett thought it was the drug addict's fault for all the things that had happened.

If the man had not threatened to kidnap Anne, Garrett would not have had to do all the rash things he did. He would not have had to move faster then human speed or use his strength to rip the bat from the side kick's hands. And he most definitely would not have had to take the bullet that was aimed at Anne therefore ruining all pretenses that he was human. Instead he had done all those things which had lead to an uncomfortable ride to her house, a stressful 'midnight visit', as Anne had called it, and a severely awkward reunion outside an ice arena.

And he had loved it all.

Having stopped the weak attempts to distancing and breaking their friendship was like ecstasy to him. Having been so close to her that Garrett could practically feel her heart beat had made it all the better. If only he could get close enough to-

_Great, I'm doing it again. _Garrett thought bitterly to himself. Every single thought that he had kept ending up back at Anne. His life was taking on a circular pattern turning around and around till he was dizzy. And he was so dizzy and preoccupied that he almost missed the turn into his driveway. At the last second he took the corner, a little fast, and hit the breaks where he then sat in his idling truck staring at his family's house.

In the daytime or, in today's case, in cloud-blocked sunlight the house looked normal, no hint or sign that anything but humans lived in it. The front porch was even decorated with whimsical looking flowers that waved hello to the rare visitor in the slightest breeze.

Somehow he managed to step out of the truck only after removing the key from the ignition and shoving it into his pocket. He slammed the door shut and made his way around it. He braced himself to start running back the way he had come when a lilting voice rang down from one of the front windows.

"So did you have any luck hunting at the ice rink?"

Garrett glanced up shielding his shock and thoughts when he saw that Breccan was leaning out a window, innocently twisting a blond lock of hair around her finger and watching him. "What did you say?"

His sister flashed a smirk at him. "I saw you standing outside the Carlson Ice Arena when I was at Rhonda's place. You _do_ remember Rhonda the Circle Midnight witch right? She lives in the high rise across the way. Her family is loaded since her mother happens to be on the Council-"

He growled softly annoyed more than ever at his sister. "Brec, this isn't something you should just yell out the window for the whole neighborhood to hear."

"Well then you should really come in here so I don't have to yell and.... endanger the family by spilling our secrets."

The way she said this sent a stab of fear through his heart. She shouldn't know...? How could she have found out...? Garrett shook himself slightly. enough to clear his head but not so Breccan would notice the movement. It looked like Anne was going to have to wait. With a grumble and a muttered curse he strode up to the front door and pushed it open. His sister was bouncing down the last step of the stairs when he shut the door behind him.

"Why are you even asking if I hunted? It's not really something you should be concerned about." Garrett asked as he watched her land in front of him with one last graceful leap.

"No reason in particular," she said twisting that same lock of hair. "But you didn't answer my question. Did you have any luck?"

"Why do you want to know?" He made sure the walls around his mind were indestructible and feigned disinterest at the same time.

"Well," Breccan said moving to walk to the living room and giving him no choice except to follow her, "Rhonda and I were sitting out on her balcony chatting about which boy we would snag to go to prom with this year when I glanced down and watched all the vermin tourists scurrying around in that big parking lot outside of the rink. I immediately recognized all the prowling Nighters since they aren't that hard to miss what with my great telepathic abilities and all."

"Humph," he snorted and she whipped her head around to glare at him.

"And you know," she said almost as an after thought, "I got a real shock when I recognized your Power aura in the mix, Garrett. So I assumed, like any sister would, that you were either hunting or had suddenly taken up an interest in skating. I'm leaning towards hunting since you look better than last night when you were seriously lacking in blood."

It was true he had gone hunting before he met Anne outside the rink. But he did not want to linger on those memories for the longer he thought about them the harder it would get to keep them away from his sister's ever groping mind.

"Nevertheless," Breccan said with a thoughtful expression, "I always thought you were more fond of seducing and taking the blood of the slender, blond office babes from down town. Not the thicker, lanky skaters that go to the rink or the strange tourists that find their way to that place."

The following silence seemed to bear down on him like a tangible force, until he finally turned away and went towards the kitchen. This conversation was taking too long and broaching a subject he did not want broached. "Go away, Breccan, and practice a flip or something for the squad you're the dictator of."

"Silly, silly brother," she said shaking her head. "You know very well that I have no need for practice. Unlimited grace is something all vampires have. You should know since that's the only way you're able to do all those skateboard tricks."

"Whatever-" he started to say when a flash of paper caught his eye. A note was posted on to the refrigerator in the kitchen. The paper's whiteness stood out against the black surface with words that were scrawled in equally dark ink. Shutting out everything that his sister was saying Garrett ripped the note off and quickly read it.

_Dear Breccan and Garrett, _

_Your mother and I have been called out to Chicago for a meeting with a few Council members in regards to recent betrayals to the Night World from the Redfern family and the growing threat of Circle Daybreak. We shall be home late Sunday night. I trust you two can find food and not destroy the house. Breccan, you are not aloud to go to club Iris unless your brother knows and your curfew still stands even though we are not there. Your cousin Kael is coming over later this afternoon for a stay. He's leaving for St. Louis early tomorrow morning though so it would be nice for you, Garrett, to tolerate him for that long. I am aware that you do not favor his presence for reasons I do not need to state in this message. _

_-__Father_

Garrett scowled at the letter, many different thoughts going through his head. His cousin was coming to town? When had that been decided? His parents leaving on such a short note was not exactly a surprise, they had done it before but never for a Council meeting. That itself was not a good sign. On one side he would not have to worry about his father breaching his mind or his mother chiding him for not hunting enough. But on the other hand he would have to spend multiple hours with a relative who found the sickest kind of joy in toying with any and all humans who fell in to his trap.

It was then that he noticed Breccan looking around his body and at the note.

"What exactly do you want from me, Breccan?" Garrett asked, his words curt from the irritation that seemed to be his constant companion at the moment. He flung the note onto the counter where it settled with a flutter of its thin edges.

She glowered for a moment or at least appeared to try since her glower just looked like a bored expression. "What makes you think I'm not just wanting to talk with my older brother for a second or two? You know... discuss things like we used to before we moved to this city and your attention moved on to something- or should I say some_one_ else."

"That was twelve years ago that we moved and the fact that you never talk to me without an ulterior motive makes me think you want something."

She arched a perfect eyebrow but kept her slightly amused smile pasted on her face. "You have to make everything hard don't you?"

"That's in the older brother job description," he said knowing he would no doubt regret egging her on.

Her beautiful, pale face had lost its normal, cool control. With the fiercest expression he had ever seen on her she started talking. "Garrett, your actions are going to get our family in to trouble. Our father won't waste his time trying to bail you out of trouble with the Council for a reason like this. Forget about the vermin and focus on something that actually matters," Breccan propped her hands on her hips as Garrett sighed like he was bored and wishing to be elsewhere.

In truth he was trying to hide any sudden fear or anxiousness that could have been visible on his face. Breccan grabbed his arms and forced him to stare into her blue eyes much like his own. "Garrett Redfern. Listen to me before you make a mistake that ends up getting Anne Faysher hurt. Or our family for that matter."

He knocked her hands away losing what composure he had gained. "Who said anything about Anne?"

"Oh please," she scoffed. "Just about every vibe I pick up from you when you came home radiated happiness and anxiety and something else. You only ever feel that way when you see the Faysher girl. And lately you're doing that an awful lot. And now I wonder if it's more than just _seeing_." She jabbed a finger at his chest. "You like her more then what is legal and the only reason I've not told anyone yet is because that would get the whole family and not just you in trouble. The Redfern name can not afford any more humiliation."

"God, Breccan that is so like you!" Garrett snarled at her. He even managed to make her flinch from the venom in his voice. He went on, "I'm not going to admit to anything when it comes out of your haughty and arrogant mouth."

He felt a sudden sharp stab of pain go through his head and he knew she was trying to see his thoughts. Garrett threw up walls of stone and steel making sure no crack was there to be exploited or weak point to be pushed upon. He twisted and grabbed the doorknob that lead to the backyard and hearing a satisfying crunch when the metal caved under his hold. He needed to get out of here before his temper flared even more.

"It's no use shielding your thoughts." He heard Breccan say under her breath. "You're easier to read then an open book now. Don't do anything that can get Anne or someone she loves killed Garrett." She turned and started towards the front of the house before glancing back over her shoulder at her brother who had not moved an inch. "That's all the warning I'm giving you. If you walk out that door I'll know where you're heading and I _will_ find a way to discourage you from ever seeing Anna-Lorraine again."

Garrett's mind was thinking quickly and no solution to this problem was coming to him. Then he spit out the first coherent and understandable thought that presented itself. Slowly he turned to face his sister with eyes like ice and a voice that was a growl. "Breccan, you think I like Anne Faysher too much but maybe I just like her blood. You know type AB- has always been a weak spot for every vampire in history because of its rarity. For someone as smart as you say you are, you think you would have figured out that I hang out with Anne just so no other Nighter will try anything with her. Breccan, if you'd stop caring about only yourself and the family name then you might have actually realized that and not gone and made all these accusations."

For once Breccan was silent and while she slowly thought about what her brother had said Garrett was breathing hard and glaring at his sister with all the emotion he could muster, which at that moment was quite a lot.

He could not believe he had just said what he did. Feed off Anne? The thought had never really crossed his mind before then. Even when the fact that she had the type of blood that most vampires fought each other over had come up, he could never bring himself to be tempted by it. But he pushed the thought to the far corners of his mind and turned flinging the door open and running out of it without a look back.

The world passed in a blur of colors and scents that barely registered in his mind. No human eyes could have seen him running which he was grateful for. He wanted to get back to Anne more then anything at that moment. It was like a physical force was yanking him along until he suddenly found himself at the front door of the Faysher's house.

He tried the doorknob but found that it was locked. Unlike his house, the Faysher's had every reason to lock their doors. He was about to knock when he finally realized that the strains of a piano was emanating out of the house to meet his ears. Garrett knew she would never hear it if he knocked. So he backed up and looked up at the house. Quickly he walked around and glanced up again his eyes setting on the one thing he was looking for.

An open window.

Garrett took a breath and went to stand just beneath the open pane. He appreciated the fact that there were no screens for it made his task much easier to do. He bent his knees and jumped relishing in the pure power that went through his legs as he leapt up to the window. In one smooth movement he was in to the house landing without so much a sound.

He did not count on Zodia being in the room he jumped into though. He ignored the cat and looked around what happened to be Mr. Faysher's master bedroom. It was clean with neutral tones that contrasted Anne's bright green room. Then his attention riveted on the cat as she jumped up from where she had been sleeping on the bed's comforter, hissing at him in fury and fright. Garrett just glared at the feline. Animals always had better perception then humans when it came to Nighters.

He turned his back on the feline and quickly made his way down the hallway and stairs. He followed the sound of the music which was coming from the area of the house that he knew was the study. He stepped around the corner and into a room filled with books and maps. But his attention was for the young woman in the middle of the room.

Anne was sitting at the piano she loved almost as much her family. Her back was straight and her slender fingers played over the large instrument with masterful ease. A familiar melody had been audible since he had left his own street and started to make his way back to the Faysher's residence. Now that he was in the house itself he could tell what the song was. _Moonlight Sonata _by Beethoven, her favorite.

If he had been breathless before, which he wasn't, now he was. A splash of weak sunlight from a window on the far wall hit her face, illuminating absolute perfection. Garrett's kind, as vampires, were labeled beautiful but even humans with their dulled senses knew that their was something just.... alien about Nighters because of that beauty. Anne had a more natural attractiveness in her appearance. It could draw people to her with just one beckoning glance of her emerald eyes that were framed by smooth, brown hair.

No, everyone compared green eyes to emeralds or forests. Anne's eyes were a color unto themselves and there were no words to describe their glow or how they could let all her emotions be read in them.

He was about to take a step what he was suddenly stricken with a thought that caused Garrett to falter in his stride towards Anne. What exactly was he doing here that was beneficial to the both of them? All he was doing was endangering the one person who he cherished above everyone else.

But as he stood watching silently with her unaware that he was there Garrett realized that there were choices available but each were more desperate then the next.

He would either leave and try to never see Anne again but even as Garrett thought this he knew it was impossible. A few months of brief and distant conversations could not sustain him and his need to hear her voice so there was no way he could just up and disappear from Anne Faysher's life.

The next option was to turn her into a vampire. As citizens of the Night World they could be together. Of course that would mean hiding out until she got the hang of life as a vampire and not to mention that they would both have to leave their families and friends in Rockford, Illinois and go far away where no one would recognize them. He could never do that, not to Anne.

Or could he?

The thought was far too tempting for him to dwell on. For now he would just content himself with seeing where the next conversation would go and what would happen to slip out of his mouth.

Not once did he suspect that it would end up the way it was about to. Not even when the first thing out of his mouth was the truest words he has ever spoken to Anne.

"You're amazing."

*******Author's Notes*******

Was that torture? I don't think it was but then again I'm the writer and I tend to like most of what I write.

I just wanted to give you a more in depth knowledge of Garrett's thoughts and where this story might be heading. Or I could just be doing this to throw you off the track and the ending will completely shock you. Bwahahahahaha!


	11. Hospital

Hola... I know. Its been awhile. I wont even go into detail about why I have been neglecting to write.

Oh my gosh though!!! I was sucked into Dark Visions, Volume One, The strange Power by L.J. Smith the minute I opened it!!!! READ IT!!!

On a calmer note I will say I'm sorry for making you wait so long.

******

_"Hello, this is Officer Trent from Rockford Emergency Response Unit. I'm calling to inform you that Mr. Robert Faysher has been in an accident--"_

******

"-and has been transported to St. Anthony's Medical Center and is undergoing surgery. If you would like to know more call 1-815-555-8374 and ask for Julie Lebid. She will give you the needed information. Good-bye."

"No!" Anne whispered unsure that she heard right.

She let go of Garrett faster than he did and nearly tripped. The answering machine had cut off and the voice of the officer was gone. She rushed to the kitchen where the machine blinked a lazy red eye, mocking her. She nearly ripped the phone off the wall in her haste to dial the number that the officer had left her to call for information.

The buzzing sound in her ear cut off at the second ring and when a sing songy female voice picked up. "Hello, St. Anthony's Lobby C and Emergency Room Receptionist?"

Anne figured she knew what she was going to say or ask whoever answered the phone but at the sound of this woman's voice all Anne's thoughts seemed to drain out.

"Hello? Is someone there?" The still-cheery voice asked from the other end of the line. Anne did the first thing she could make her frozen self do.

She hung up, snapping the phone back against the wall so hard it jarred her arm.

"Anne..." she vaguely heard Garrett say, the worry evident in his quiet voice. He stood behind her in the kitchen entrance, his strong arms folded over his chest, a frozen statue with snapping blue eyes.

She did not say anything but rushed around him and down the hall to the front of her house where she grabbed her shoes and shoved her feet into them. She stood up quickly, remembering she needed a coat for the nights were still cold and knocked her head against a shelf that hung on the wall in the foyer. Anne rubbed the spot, silently wondering about how much more her head could take without it just splitting open.

"Anna-Lorraine Faysher," Garrett said softly but firmly his voice very near. "Will you slow down and think for a minute before you hurt yourself again?"

She glanced at him and then bent down to quickly tie her loose shoe laces. Her clumsy fingers only succeeded in creating knots. She sighed in frustration and sat down hard her back against the front door her head in her hands.

"Anne?" Garrett asked making her look up at him. He had come to stop in front of her and stood less then two feet away. The distance was much more than she wished it to be but she could not think about him at the moment. She needed to concentrate on her father; her father that had been in an accident and was in surgery getting poked and prodded by metal contraptions as she sat there.

That fact suddenly came crashing down on her and Anne stumbled as she tried to push herself up from where she was sitting. Garrett was kneeling next to her in a heart beat putting out a gentle hand to steady her. Anne abruptly found herself clinging to his warm body and sobbing into his shoulder. Her thoughts were whirling and she momentarily felt bad for Garrett for not even she could make heads or tails out of anything that went through her head let alone someone who could hear what she was thinking.

"Anne you need to calm down-" He tried to say but she leaned away from him. The look she was giving him made him stop in the middle of his sentence.

"Calm down?" She repeated wiping her tears off with the back of her hand. "Garrett how can you ask that from me? My father is in the hospital-"

"Yes, I got that part but Anne," he brushed a fly away piece of hair from her face leaving a trail of sparks across her skin, "you want to go to the hospital but once you get there what are you going to do? Sit there in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs and read old magazines? You went through that once in your life already; do you want to do it again?"

"Do you think I _want_ to?" She asked feeling a tear flow down her cheek. "I have had my fill of hospital waiting rooms since my mom had to go there all those times but now... I need to be there for my dad and-and..."

He cut her stumbling sentence off with a gentle kiss to her cheek, following the salty trail the teardrop had created. She could not stop the gasp from slipping out her lips or the beat of her heart from picking up. She definitely could not block the electricity that now inhabited her mind nor the silver cord that hummed under their feet.

Anne knew she should stop him and get back to trying to stand up and getting her coat. She really did not want to but she needed to try anyway just to say that she did.

"Garrett..." she sighed his name out.

"Sorry," he whispered against her skin, "But, I can't help it. You're hurting and I don't know how to help you. I feel as helpless as I did when your mother was sick. And," he said quietly, "Your eyes glow when you're angry and your cheeks get all flushed." He moved his soft mouth farther along her cheek and jaw. He trailed his lips across to her neck placing gentle kisses against it and making her breathless. "It's almost too hard to restrain myself."

Anne immediately made herself move away from him although it hurt her heart to do so. "Garrett..."

Anxiety flashed in his eyes at her fear filled expression. "I'm sorry Annie, I didn't mean to scare you." He bent his head down looking ashamed, "I have been restraining myself for the past twelve years and it's only gotten easier with time so you shouldn't worry about that. Finally being open with you about my feelings..." he paused and gave me a crooked smile, "let's just say it's intoxicating and it makes it hard to think straight."

"It's okay," she told him quietly moving to take his hand in hers. She added in a whispering voice as she twined her fingers with his a dim gold light framing her eyesight as she looked at him, "At least I think it's okay. But Garrett Redfern, I have other things to worry about and you are distracting me."

"Darn you caught me..." he said with a soft laugh. He looked up catching her green eyes with his bright blue ones and placed his free hand gently against her cheek. A current of golden light flowed through her body from that place of connection and from where there hands linked.

Neither of them were able to move from that spot nor did they particularly want to.

_Slam!_

The two of them jumped when the sound of the garage door leading to the kitchen crashed open and a voice rang through the otherwise silent house.

"Annie Bananie! I brought food home!"

"Oh my gosh. Braden..." she whispered not breaking her gaze from Garrett's but feeling a weight press itself back against her momentarily relieved shoulders. "He wouldn't know about our-our father."

"Well then you best tell him," Garrett said, gracefully standing and pulling her up with him.

"Anne, where are you?" Braden called just as he turned down the hallway and caught sight of them. His voice lost its joking tone when he spotted Garrett standing so close to his little sister. "What the heck are you doing here, Redfern?"

Anne did not need the power of telepathy to know what her brother was thinking as he took in her disheveled appearance and tear-stained, flushed cheeks.

"Brad..." Anne tried to explain but it was too late. Her brother charged at, grabbed, and then rammed the compliant vampire up against the wall.

Braden shook Garrett none too gently who, in turn, did not lift a finger to defend himself. Her brother yelled, "I thought you were just giving her a ride home! What the hell have you been doing here for the last four hours? Why did you make her cry?"

"Braden!" Anne said rushing over to yank her brother away from her friend. It wouldn't have worked if Garrett hadn't been silently 'convincing' her brother to let go anyway but since he was she dragged him back while saying, "He didn't do anything to make me cry!"

"Well when I come back to the house I don't usually expect my little sister to have some boy over when no one else is home," Braden said heatedly still glaring at Garrett. "What else am I supposed to think when I see the two of you standing so close and you with tears all down your face?"

Anne replied just as angrily, "I would have hoped you'd think something sane and not have blown this way out of proportion. And Garrett isn't _some boy._ He's been over a hundred times without adult supervision."

"Uhh, did I miss something?" A quiet, shocked voice said from down the hallway.

Anne turned while keeping her hands on Braden and saw that Lerata was standing in the kitchen entrance with a bag of Subway sandwiches in her hands.

Garrett visibly stiffened when Lerata walked farther into the room and Anne could not even guess why the short, slender female would effect him like that. Instead she said, "You didn't miss anything. We're just having a minor altercation."

"A minor altercation that will end with Redfern walking out the door and not coming back for a while," Braden practically hissed through his clenched teeth. "Anna-Lorraine let go."

"Are you going to charge him again?" She asked hesitating. When he nodded but kept glaring at Garrett she rolled her eyes and dropped her hands from where they had held her brother.

"You heard me, Redfern, leave." Bradon said gesturing at the front door.

Garrett did not immediately turn to leave but instead looked at Anne asking a silent question in not so many words.

She nodded ever so slightly hoping that he could see that she did not truly want him to go just that it would be easier for her to tell the news to Bradon if he was not seething at Garrett. She took a step towards the door and pulled it open letting in a chilly breeze that wafted its way around the four of them. Garrett sighed slowly and forced a grin to his features as he walked to the threshold.

"Garrett," she whispered suddenly stopping his steps. Her brother was quietly talking to Lerata his words drowning out what Anne said next, "I-"

She did not have to finish her sentence for he knew what she was trying to say. He nodded. Before he stepped out into the night he briefly laid a warm and electrifying hand over hers that was holding on to the front door's handle. He smiled down at her, a sad and loving one and then went out the door. His long legs carried him swiftly and gracefully across the lawn where at the edge of the grass he turned to meet Anne's watching eyes. The sun finished setting but a last ray glanced over Garrett's face flashing over his eyes making them go silver, gold, then the blue that Anne knew she could peacefully drown in.

_You know, _Garrett said in her mind and making Anne jump slightly. W_hat your brother was thinking when he saw the two of us in the front hall wasn't that far off from the truth. Though he _did_ blow it way out of proportion. You kept you shirt on the whole time._

She rolled her eyes though a shaky grin spread across her face. _You are such a _guy_, even if you do sprout fangs on occasion. _A quiet chuckle drifted across the lawn to her ears. Then it stopped as Anne went on. _I have one question though, _she said to him and biting her lip. _What... what was that thing that happened between us? It didn't seem real but I definitely could not have imagined it._

_I told you Annie, _came his sweet answer, _it's called the soulmate principle. _

_Soulmate... _Anne repeated a shiver going down her spine at the truth that that one word held. She leaned against the still open door and sighed. _That sounds.... scary._

He was back in front of her in a heartbeat, his eyes filled with many emotions that Anne could not read. _Scary? Why? I won't ever hurt you. I'll protect you from everything-_

_Garrett, _she said interrupting his silent tirade. Glancing back behind her to see her brother and Lerata still deeply immersed in their conversation Anne swiftly stood on her tiptoes and threw her arms around his neck. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and inhaled his unique spicy aroma. _It's not you that scares me. It's the fact that my free will was taken away from me. I never got the chance to think about what I wanted. This soulmate thing really is uncontrollable and overpowering and its sheer power is enough to terrify even the strongest person._

_So you regret that it was me that this happened to you with? _His voice nearly broke her heart when she heard the dejection and misery in it.

"No, Garrett," Anne said out loud this time and leaned back to look into his eyes. "You are my other half. You have always been my friend, my brother, and now you get to be my boyfriend, and eventually maybe even my husband but," she paused and lost her voice for it was starting to get choked with emotions. _But now I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to go and so do you. _

_Speaking of getting ahead of yourself... _he paused, with his crooked grin showing on his pale, beautiful face. The next words were a whisper through her mind like his lips had been on her skin. _I love you Anna-Lorraine_.

She could not help but smile as her heart fluttered_. I have the sudden urge to say I know and that I should have realized a long time ago that I love you too. _

They were leaning towards each other as if a magnet was pulling them closer when Bradon's voice interrupted.

"Anna-Lorraine!" It thundered angrily behind her.

"Our separate paths call," Garrett whispered his breath tickling her ear. "Remember to be strong and that I'm only a phone call away. Or if I'm close enough all you have to do is think my name. I'll hear it if it kills me."

"It better not kill you," she objected. "I couldn't live without you."

"Well since dying is not on my agenda to do..." he said teasingly and earning an eye roll from her.

"Anne!" Bradon yelled from inside again making her frown.

"Bye, Gary..." she whispered still not ready to let him go and return to the pain that waited for her.

"Bye, Annie." He slowly removed his arms from where they had held her against him and started to walk away through the dark. She knew when he had left the edge of her yard and disappeared into the night.

"So," Braden said causing her to turn and meet his fuming gaze, "just what were you two doing? And also, if he didn't make you cry what did?"

The world and the everything that went with it came back and Anne had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from crying. "Come here," she said heading around them to the kitchen, "you have to listen to this."

The red light that signaled a message continued to blink as the three of them stopped next to the machine where it rested on top of the counter top. Anne slowly reached out and hit the play button. She focused in on watching Braden's reaction knowing if she listened to the reminder that her father was in the hospital she would break down again. But as she watched her big, strong brother seem to cave in on himself as he heard what had caused his sister's tears she felt emptier than ever.

"We need to get to the hospital," Braden said finally after a moment of staring blankly at the answering machine. He searched his pockets for the keys to his car while Anne just nodded and went to grab her coat. She came back to see Lerata grab the keys from Anne's brother's back pocket making a visible shiver race through his big body even as his face grew paler by the second.

The small blond female said, "I'll drive Brad, since neither of you are in any condition to do so."

"Fine..." Braden said, clearly still in shock after hearing the message for otherwise he would have argued and demanded to drive them.

It could not have taken more than a few minutes for them to get situated in the car and start driving, but to Anne it felt like a century since Garrett had left. And the ride to the hospital was silent. It was so different from the song that had been playing in her head since that afternoon. She leaned her head against the cold glass of the window and let more tears fall as all the warmth Garrett had given her left her body.

_How- why- _Nothing would connect in her mind, all her thoughts leading to dead ends in a labyrinth. What she did register was Lerata's manic driving and her brother's wide-eyed gaze as the big five story stone, brick, and steel hospital building with its blazing lights came into view.

The inside hospital lights were too bright and everything seemed to gleam. People were everywhere in the place where Anne, Braden and Lerata walked in.

Braden immediately walked up to the front desk foregoing the line that was already there and said in a demanding voice, "We would like to know what room, if any, that Mr. Robert Faysher is in. He was in some sort of accident if that helps at all."

"I'm sorry son," one of the receptionists said looking up briefly from where she was typing rapidly on her computer, "But you need to wait in line just like everyone else."

"But," Bradon tried to say but was pushed back by the next few people who bustled up to the desk.

"Let me," Lerata said putting a hand on Braden's shoulder. The violet eyed female turned and smiled at the woman behind the counter. "Excuse me," she said politely.

The receptionist did not even look up at Lerata as she answered, "I'm sorry, miss, but I just told your friend that you will have to wait in line."

"This is important though," Lerata said in a quiet voice as her fingers almost subconsciously started to play around with a necklace that Anne just noticed was around the blond's neck.

It looked to be some type of jewel but as it caught and threw around the fluorescent lights Anne had to look away from its piercing beauty. Instead she looked at the woman who had glanced up from where she was shuffling papers and now saw Lerata's necklace and its charm. Something fell from the woman's stern gaze making it become relaxed and much more open.

"What?" She asked in a shaky voice, "Mr. Robert what... oh yes, yes I remember. I need to see some identification first-"

Braden whipped out his driver's license even before she was finished and made the woman pause to look at it.

"Okay then," she said handing it back still with a vague glaze over her eyes, "one moment please. I need to look it up."

"Thank you very much," Lerata said with a blazing smile and tucking her necklace back under her shirt. The blond turned to Braden and said, "You just need a woman's touch on conversations sometimes."

Anne was not so sure for a tickling feeling had started to become apparent in the back of her head. But she brushed it off when the woman started talking.

"Just go up to the third floor and the ward that's marked Trauma," the nurse said to the three of them. "When his surgery is done Mr. Faysher will be moved to the Critical Care Unit room 316."

Anne and Braden were already heading to the elevators as the nurse finished speaking.

"Thank you," Anne yelled over her shoulder as her brother mauled the UP button for the elevator hitting the already lit-up switch many more times than necessary.

"Brad," Lerata said putting a hand over his as it hit the button again. "It's coming, now calm down. Your father will be fine-"

Her sentence was interrupted when the elevator doors slid open and the rushed into the nearly empty car. Its doors closed and they made their way up at an agonizingly slow speed. Lerata did not bother to finish what she had started to say.

Finally the elevator's doors opened on to the third level and they rushed out but not before Anne said quietly to Lerata, "I'm sorry you have to be caught up in this. This probably wasn't the way you wanted to spend your Saturday night here."

"It's okay," the blond responded with a small smile, "I'd rather be with Braden than anywhere else."

"You really care about him don't you?" Anne asked as they turned a corner of the hallway, "I haven't known you that long but I can really tell that you care about my brother."

Lerata's smile widened and she nodded. "It was one of those moments that the movies describe, the ones that tell about how you just know that you are meant for each other. The minute I saw your brother, which was right after he was done with his football practice mind you, I thought he was the most amazing guy I had ever seen. Though my family would kill me if they knew about my feelings for Brad..."

Anne was prevented from asking just what she meant by that when their small trio rounded a last corner ans were met by a flurry of activity that consisted of nurses and a very tired and hassled looking doctor.

"Dr. Barnhart!" Anne called to the man in the flapping white coat. Dr. Barnhart had been her families doctor ever since Braden was born and he had been with the Fayshers as their mother had slowly succumbed to cancer. Now the man was dressed in the smocks and funny looking surgical clothes and as he turned to look to see who had called his name Anne saw his eyes were glassy and the look of shock was evident.

"Anne, Braden? What- Oh," he said practically all in the same breath as understanding dawned on him. "You heard. I had thought that I could break the news to you myself but-"

"A police officer called our house and told us our father was in surgery," Braden asked in a rush. "Where is he now?"

Dr. Barnhart looked at the tall young man and then at his sister and the other female standing next to him. "You haven't heard? Oh my," he said quietly making Anne's heart start to pound loudly in her chest. He gestured for the three of them to follow him down the hall and into an empty room where over night patients would normally stay. "Listen before I say anything-"

"What happened?" Braden demanded interrupting whatever the older man was going to say. The doctor looked from each of their faces. "Anne, Braden I'm terribly sorry but-" Dr. Barnhart paused and seemed to get choked up for a moment.

"But what?" Anne asked not wanting to know why the man was looking at them with such a pitying face.

The doctor put a gentle hand on her shoulder trying in his professional way to calm her down even before he broke the news. "I'm terribly sorry to have to bring this information to you but your father was declared dead a half an hour ago."

***

Anne's heart stopped briefly before she shook her head and asked, "You can't be serious can you? The officer said he was alive and in surgury, he was... he was..."

Her voice dropped off as the older man continued to shakes his head and when he said, "If you would like to call anyone, any family members, there is a phone that is available for that down stairs."

Anne suddenly found herself falling back into the wall for supports as her hearing became blocked by a roaring sound and a fog that swept into her mind. A hollowness yawned in her chest leaving nothing in its wake. Shock and pain swirled through her veins, a physical ripping feeling tore through her body shredding her from head to toe.

"What?" That was Braden's voice, far off and nearly inaudible to Anne. He sounded like a six year old lost in the park, bewildered and confused. "Did you just say...it can't be... Dad?"

Lerata had her hand up to her mouth clearly in shock as much as the other two. "Oh my gosh, Braden... Anne, I am so sorry."

Anne did not answer, her mind was blank except for words that were being screamed silently at her.

_No! No! This isn't happening. Why my family? _Anne laughed a harsh and wrenching sound that fell from her throat which startled the doctor and a nurse nearby. _What family, Anna-Lorraine? It's just you and Brad now. There is no one left in Illinois now for you to go to. _

Anne suddenly realized that her feet were moving, carrying her away from the silent brother and his girlfriend that was able to give him what comfort she could. She heard Dr. Barnhart call after her but Anne ran down the white halls foregoing the elevators and taking the stairs knowing she had to keep moving. She could not let the pain catch up to her, the pain that was following her like a hound on the hunt with her scent in its nose. The stairs ended to soon and she was rushing past E.R. doctors and residents who looked at her quizzically with brief concern before going back to their jobs. The parking lot and its maze of cars came and went and Anne found herself running alone along a cracked sidewalk in some unknown direction.

Her adrenaline driven run had to stop before she passed out. Her legs ached and lungs burned but not as much as her heart. Everything was numb though, her brain was in denial of the realization that her father was somewhere in the huge hospital behind her under a sheet, his eyes never to open again and his jovial laugh forever silenced.

So caught up in her misery, Anne never saw the moving shadow and she did not even realize something was behind her until a splitting pain ripped open her head and darkness became her world.

***

Wow. I started writing this chapter completely unaware of just where it was going but now that I got to the end of it I'm still not sure. I think there is one or two (most likely two) chapters left in this story though... *sigh* the end is near...

I'll try to make it less than three weeks before I update again.


	12. Blackness

Hello…. I'm doing better now. If you did not read my Author's note thing then you wouldn't know that my friend Dylan Hales died on Oct 25th. It was a car accident and I was in the car with him. It wasn't his fault, it was a drunk driver that T-boned Dylan's car. I've been in and out of the hospital for a while with a broken hip, broken elbow, (its really hard to type by the way) and too many bruises and cuts to count.

Sorry for the far too long wait. I might, _might _actually finish the story before next year but I'm not making any promises. (SORRY FOR ANY MISTAKES YOU FIND)

Now I'll stop boring you and just get on with the story that I have neglected.

********

Instead of running this time Garrett walked to his own house. He tried to remember how to breathe as he fought every instinct in his vampire body that told him to turn around and not leave Anne alone as she went to the hospital with her brother and that witch Lerata.

Yes, Lerata was a witch, one he had met a couple times over the course of the last few years. She had not changed much, what with her strikingly blond hair and violet eyes being a dead give away to her magical heritage. But her taste in men was different from the last time he saw her.

_Braden? _A disbelieving voice asked. _Why would she go for him_?

Not that he cared, Garrett was just curious as to why Lerata was suddenly smitten by a human? And why she would rather spend her Saturday night in the ER instead of out partying like he knew she would love to do now that her parents were not watching every move she made. Her parents didn't pay much attention to their youngest daughter, not after her sister died out in Washington.

"Hmmm…" Garrett sighed and shook his head at the craziness he was trying to decipher. The one conclusion he could come up with as to why Braden would have caughten Lerata's eye was so unlikely he didn't want to give it the slightest bit of substance by thinking about it.

So what if Anne's brother and his girlfriend had been looking at each other like they were each others' sun? So what if their whispered conversation as he and Anne had been saying goodbye seemed to have not taken place out loud as much as in their heads…

_No, it's just too big of a coincidence. _He told himself.

Then again, if he and Anne could become soulmates why not Lerata and Braden?

_Soulmates_? Garrett thought and snorted, a human habit that was starting to get on his nerves. But irritation was quickly replaced by amusement. _Yeah right, if that's true then I can turn into a bat. _

As it was, Garrett was still tempted to follow them to the hospital. He only refrained in doing so because he realized that he had been gone most of the day and if he did not get home Breccan would no doubt come to find him.

That would not be good.

Not to mention his cousin had most likely arrived while he was gone from the house. The note Garrett's father had left him and Breccan had said no specific time, just that Kael would come later that afternoon.

When he got to the Redfern's house the lights were out. Garrett did not find that strange, his kind didn't usually need lights, but he did find it on the odd side that he could not sense his sister or his cousin in the house.

"If Breccan went to Club Iris, I don't know whether to be thankful or mad that she didn't tell me," Garrett said to himself as he went inside.

Turns out he was thankful that neither of his relatives were there, for he liked the silence and it gave him the chance to keep thinking. He sighed, feeling worn to the core but also content. He slipped up the stairs through a house full of shadows heading for his bedroom. He walked into it and immediately shut the door. Garrett glanced at the alarm clock that sat on the floor near his bed seeing that it was near seven thirty. He blew out a breath and clenched his teeth trying to block out all the overwhelming emotions that were swamping him.

Guilt was the worse, swelling up from beneath his feet. Despite what Anne had said, Garrett felt like he had done nothing to help his and Anne's predicament and only made it worse.

Then there was Anne's father who had ended up in the hospital which put more stress on their already dangerous relationship. How could that have happened? Garrett chuckled to himself realizing the stupidity of that silent question. They lived in _Rockford, _Illinois where there were robberies, attacks, and murders almost everyday. There were too many potential suspects to even delve that deeply into that topic. Still, Mr. Faysher's hospitalization was horrible on Anne which in turn was horrible on him.

Slowly, Garrett sank down to sit on the side of his bed running his fingers through his hair wishing just once that he could bear the brunt of the hurt he knew Anne was feeling and had felt in her seventeen years of life.

He swallowed back the unpleasantness of reality and tried to think of something else that didn't revolve around his soulmate-

Wait.

Did he just say that? _**His** _soulmate_? _

Garrett sat thinking for a minute before he smiled into the dark. Yeah, Anne was _his_ soulmate, just like he was hers. And that thought, distracting as it was, could not help but lead his mind to a place where he had wanted to go since leaving Anne's house.

So he gave in, finally collapsing back on to his bed and shoving his face into the rarely-used pillow and letting a whirlpool conquer his mind. With a loud sigh he opened the floodgate that were holding back his thoughts and let everything rush forth.

Ideas, images, and memories poured through a channel and flashed behind his closed eyes. Briefly, Garrett wondered if he explained the soulmate principle to Anne the right way but then discarded the unpleasant yet lingering doubt. Instead, he switched to a much brighter topic.

Anne had said she loved him. She had said it and meant it in a deeper, more intimate way than just as friends. Then on top of that she had kissed him. Garrett fidgeted a little, realizing that that was only true because he had trapped her between him and the wall of her house demanding why she couldn't believe a creature like him was capable of feeling love when, really, she was just speechless from his revelation.

'_I can't believe it took you so long to admit that,' _she had whispered to him after she silenced his tirade by placing her hands- her soft, pianist's hands- on his face.

Garrett almost groaned out loud as he remembered the way their bodies had been pressed together, her curves fitting perfectly against him, or how finally, after staring into Anne's green eyes for seconds that stretched into eternity, he had succumbed to the ever there, always growing need, and pressed his mouth to hers.

Now, he unconsciously licked his lips remembering just how delicious Anne had tasted. It took a lot of will power to keep his fangs in check as he experienced the flavor of her flesh for the first time. It was hard, harder than any other time they had been together because at the moment of the first hesitant brush of skin against skin Garrett had wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into her throat and let her . It was a harsh concept but a true one. A mouthwatering vanilla sent had wafted from her hair as he curled his fingers through it along with a sweet aroma of life that emanated from her skin. Her heart sang out a rhythm that he wanted to answer.

It had been heaven in his arms, haloed with a golden light that announced the long awaited arrival of the soulmate principle. In Garrett's opinion, something better than Anne's body was her _mind. _It was crisp yet warm, sharp but comfortable- a place he had never truly been and wanted to return to.

He sighed and twisted around seeming unable to get comfortable on his normally comfortable bed. The once welcomed darkness was starting to be lonely since the light of the soulmate principle had been gone for so long. His pulse echoed forlornly through his chest now that there was no other heart to beat beside it.

_Garrett!_

He sat up suddenly when he heard his name yelled.

"Breccan?" he called thinking that he had fallen asleep for a split second otherwise he would have heard his sister approaching.

_Oh no…Garrett…_

This time it was a whisper of despair and farewell, something he had only heard a few times, in the minds of those about to die. The only difference was they had not been calling _his_ name.

He glanced around his dark room seeing nothing but knowing something was there, on the outskirts of his consciousness. He sensed it there, nudging and brushing, trying to get through his normal barrier that surrounded his mind. Whatever it was, it was not something hostile. On the contrary, it was something warm but encased with a frosted coat of fear that had somehow called out and found him.

_Garrett…_ the words glided out on one last pleading breath.

Then and there he made up his mind. Garrett shut his eyes and sent out his Power letting it spread like the tide across a beach searching for the source of the voice.

He sunk into clouds of gold and sun, searching for something that he knew was there. Suddenly silver interrupted the solid wall of colors he was seeing. Specifically a silver cord that seemed to hum with ancient and endless powers. He hesitated for just a moment before he took a breath and grabbed the shining line. He was whisked between worlds it seemed, being pulled through doors and windows normally not accessible to him but now were. Images and thoughts flew by, most indistinguishable but still able to catch his attention for a brief moment. Dark, light, reds, blues, people, and animals. All seemed to leap at him until there was just the darkness that drifted into white behind his eyelids forming shapes and colors that he did not recognize.

He heard the muted sound of vehicles coming from behind him, tires shrieking as the brakes were slammed down upon and sirens wailing like a child separated from its mother.

It was nothing compared to what his other heightened senses were picking up.

He saw something looming up to overwhelm him, standing tall and unmovable while carrying the weight of death in its invisible gaze. Garrett struggled wanting to move away from the picture but instead retched as the stifling scent of decaying blood reached his sensitive vampire nose. Blood normally smelled like life to him but not when it was old and dead.

He did not know where he was but he knew that whoever had been calling his name was in there with him. He felt a warmth near his side and the sound of a faint heart under the noise of traffic. Each beat was matched with a shallow breath that seemed to get quieter by the millisecond.

_Garrett… _The voice was so close it was a part of him.

And it was saying good bye.

His eyes snapped opened and Garrett found that he was breathing hard, not sure how to react to what he had seen. Before he could think on it more he became aware of the approaching sound of a car. Normally it would not have caught his attention but he recognized the unique engine noise of his sister's Chevy Camaro just as it cut off. He listened as the car door opened and slammed closed and then as footsteps made their way up to the front door. It was only a second later that he recognized Breccan's Power aura and her garbled mumbling. Garrett sat up on his bed feeling a quizzical look spread on his face. Since when did his sister mumble? It was either yell, yell, yell, or talk enough to drive him insane. She always made her self clear not matter was mood she was in.

_Something is not right_, he thought pushing himself onto his feet and trudging out his room and back down the hall and stairs, _Not right at all._

"Garrett!"

He jumped when he heard his sister call his name, the silence of the house shattered. He rubbed his aching head and stopped at the top of the stairs.

"What?" he asked catching sight of Breccan at the bottom of the steps.

In a blink of an eye she was standing in front of him causing Garrett to step back a foot. "So did you get tired of your little play thing finally?"

"Am I supposed to know what that means?" he snapped not ready for her mind games. The echo of the lost voice was still reverberating in his head.

"You heard me," she said, grinning like a cat with the fish in between its paws, "did you finally get tired of clinging to Anna-Lorraine?"

"Why would you ask that?" he asked perplexed and still half distracted by the strange things he had seen.

"Well it's the only logical reason I could come up with about why you would let Anne walk down East State Street all by herself-"

"What?!" Garrett stared at his sister, all thoughts about darkness and death forgotten.

"Well, I was down there with Kael-"

"Kael?!" He nearly choked on his cousin's name.

"Will you stop interrupting me?" Breccan snapped at him. He didn't say a word, though; from shock and not because she ordered him to do so. "Thank you. Now as I was saying, first Kael and I were down on State Street then low and behold a certain Mr. Faysher shows up being mugged by two drug addicts-"

He gasped. "What?!"

She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. "You said it before, I'll say it again. The Faysher family members happen to have a very rare blood type that vampires, like ourselves, can't get enough of. So when Kale caught a whiff, he kinda sorta, maybe a little-"

"Get to the point!" Garrett snarled at his sister.

She didn't even flinch at his tone and stared at him with her flashing blue eyes that matched his. "Well he lost control and killed the druggies and attacked Mr. Faysher. A policeman was coming so I had to drag him out of there. I left Kael at Club Iris to cool down and came home. But, about a minute away from here Kael called me saying that he loved Rockford for he had never come across so many people with AB- blood type. I asked what exactly that meant and-"

As his sister went on in words that were nothing more than air, Garrett felt the world crash down around his head, the roaring of a scared and furious beast echoing in his ears.

He put a hand out stopping Breccan in mid-word.

"Kael has Anne doesn't he?"

Breccan's silence was all the answer he needed. Thoughts whizzed around in his head one right after the other, things he should have realized a lifetime ago.

Garrett had silently promised to protect Anne from everything that could hurt her. Now he knew he had broken that promise, by letting her father get caught in the crossfire between the human and Night world and by letting Anne go out alone.

That voice Garrett had been hearing was Anne's.

Anne had been calling for help from him and he hadn't answered it.

Now, his cousin had Anne and planned to kill her slowly. That was what Kael did with selected prey.

The worst thought that zipped through Garrett's almost blank mind was that he might now be too late to save her.

******Author's Note*******

Like? Dislike? Tell me. Please.

Anyone know who the two drug addicts are? (Honestly, this story is a really big circle). Anyone figure out just who Lerata WEALD is related to? (Look in L.J. SMith's Black Dawn and you might find the answer. Remember, she's a WITCH whose sister died in WASHINGTON).

As I said before I'm going to try and finish this before the year is out. (No Guarantees) but break starts Friday so I'll have more time to write after this weekend. Who knows....


	13. Bitten

Just keep reading, just keep reading. Still muddling through here all snuggly warm in a ton of blankets while there's a ton of snow and ice falling outside my window. Hope you all are just as warm as you read my second to last chapter for this story.

************

Waking up from oblivion is a hard thing to do. To go from an overwhelming reality to the blissfulness of nothing was a relief. To do the opposite was hell. This philosophy came to Anne as she floated in void not feeling, not hearing, just existing in complete nothingness. There was no such thing as sound, no world, and no life.

There was nothing.

Until pain interrupted paradise. Anne gasped and remembered sound, shifted which made her recall feeling and heard her heart thud in her chest causing her to remember life. There was still black but it was constantly disturbed by images that made no sense to her fading mind.

First, it was a hazy bedroom, one she had rarely ever been in, which showed an alarm clock flashing the numbers 7:30. Next came a face she knew was familiar but couldn't recognize. Dark, messy hair and blue eyes that were supposed to mean something to her but didn't were visible against the backdrop of the void. The face was clear and open but had a shadow that laid heavily over his eyes. The eyes themselves were tortured, worried, and not content, making Anne want to hold their owner close to her and sooth his troubles.

Oh why could she not remember this person's identity? It- _he_ was important to her, someone who was her other half….

Then she remembered.

_Garrett! _she yelled finding his name in the depths of her soul, etched as it was on her heart. He was there, just out of reach. _Where am I? Where are you?_

No answer came to her, as she spiraled away in to the clinging darkness.

The vacuum from which she had come from was sucking her back into its depths, mercilessly pulling her away from the light in which she wanted to go. She reached out a hand trying in vain to grab a hold of his and pull herself out of this misery she was in.

_Oh no… Garrett… _she cried as he finally disappeared from her.

Something else was coming for her now, something she couldn't see but sensed outside an invisible window, watching her like a caged animal.

_Garrett… _she said with the essence of goodbye in her voice.

Then there was nothing except her breathing which created a sound that seemed to echo from the corners of an empty room and bounce back to her ears.

Anne forced her very reluctant body to move, trying to collect the memories of how her legs used to feel as she walked or how her fingers felt against piano keys. It had all been instinctive to do such things, but now she had to force herself to remember.

Finally, she jerked herself out of the void and back to reality.

Anne sat up, instantly awake and wishing she wasn't. Her vision was still nonexistent for all she could see was blackness. There was no doubt that she was awake and conscious because the feeling of being caged came upon her. In the void there was an endlessness that let Anne fly freely and that was now gone replaced with dense walls. Her hearing was dulled and the sudden reek of unwashed spaces was overwhelming but so was another more prominent smell, one that stayed as a metallic, sour taste in her mouth making Anne cough and gag.

Blood; old, thick, and unbearable. It was as sickening as it was dreadful, a cloying scent that started to suffocate her.

She felt like screaming, beating the floor, and bawling her eyes out. She let a tear leak out of her stinging eyes, sliding across her skin and leaving trails of sorrow on her cheeks but that was all. Anne forced her lungs to expand as she took a breath and paused to think.

She stretched out her hands trying to feel something that would help her identify where she was. Her hand met the junction of two walls, making her realize that she was sitting in a corner. Sliding her hands down the rough but otherwise uninterrupted surface, she came into contract with the cold, stone floor. Anne sat back, afraid of going farther away from her current location and finding out just where the fetid odors were coming from.

Now the next question she needed to ask herself was how did Anne get where she was now?

She had been running down the street away from a hospital where her father slumbered in eternal silence and her brother sat glassy-eyed in shock. After she slowed to a walk, though, there was nothing in her mind to tell her what happened. All there was consisted of a split second of pain and then the dark void. That void had been an empty place that Anne now wanted to return to instead of living in this terrifying reality.

Her father was dead, she was experiencing a bone deep ache in her body, and she was trapped. Anne was alone in a confining room, that smelled revolting, and was darker than night with no way out.

Suddenly, the creak of footsteps coming downstairs stairs interrupted her pity fest. Anne swallowed hard and stood up on shaking legs, knowing whoever was coming was not a friend. Her breath sped up as the rusty turn of a doorknob sounded, like a gunshot through the silence. Anne squinted in silence as a sliver of light appeared behind the opening door that was located on the opposite wall from where she sat. A figure stood briefly in front of it blocking the beam for a moment until it was gone and so was the light.

"So Sleeping Beauty is awake?" a cold, tenor voice asked from the direction of the door.

"W- who are you?" Anne stuttered in to the darkness. "What do you want?"

"What do I want?" came the harsh, mocking answer. "What do I want? Well I'll tell you what I want." There was the sound of a few footsteps from in front of her and then the voice. "I want you."

A light abruptly flared above her making Anne gasp and shut her eyes but not before she caught a glimpse of the room and the person standing dominantly next to a battered door and old light switch.

The room was bare except for a large bundle of rags in the opposite corner from her and it had cement floors. A broken, boarded up window was set high up on the wall making Anne wonder briefly if she could be in a basement or some type of abandoned storeroom. But then her thoughts went to the man.

He- for there was definitely no mistaking the gender- was tall and broad with a shocking cap of blond hair and bright green eyes. His features were blindingly handsome and if Anne hadn't known better she would have been under his spell in no time. But she _did _know better, especially when she opened her clenched eyelids and met the stranger's gaze.

His eyes reflected nothing, they were deep holes that lead to no where, in which some unknowing creature could drown.

"Like what you see?" he asked, his lips moving but the words were indistinct in Anne's ears for she had caught sight of fangs flashing in his mouth.

Vampire.

The word rang in her mind over and over again until she mentally slapped herself. _Get over it Anna-Lorraine. He's not the first one and hopefully he won't be the last._

But she shook her head and said, "no, I don't _like_ what I see." She stopped suddenly when she remembered what he had said. "Why do you want me? What am I to you?"

"At the moment," he said quietly, slinking up to stand closer to her, "you are everything to me, Anna-Lorraine."

She stepped away, but only succeeded in hitting her back against the wall. "How do you know who I am?"

"Telepathy is a beautiful thing," the vampire answered, "but you wouldn't know that." He looked at her for a moment and his face split into a disturbing smile. "Or do you know that?" She kept silent but that didn't stop a mind reading fiend. He laughed coldly. "Oh my, my, my. I see Cousin Garrett has been a busy little Nighter telling our secrets all over the place. Makes my job easier and much more enjoyable though."

"Cousin?" Anne asked, shocked enough to retain more consciousness. He looked at her like she was stupid. "Yes, I'm Garrett Redfern's cousin. Kael Rasmussen is the name, hunting is the game." He made to hold out his hand as if to shake hers, making her flinch. The terrifying smile was back on his face as he watched this. Then he turned, flinging his arms open and surprising her with the sudden motion.

"Like the digs?" he asked looking around and nodding appreciatively at the cracking walls and broken window. "Got this address from my last meal's mind. There he is on the floor," he said nodding to the lump of clothing that occupied the farthest corner.

Anne gulped when she turned instinctively. When she first saw this pile of rags she hadn't paid any attention to it, but now she did. She bit back a scream when she saw the bloated, blotched face of the would-be-robber and drug addict Zeek staring accusingly at her as if it was her fault that he had met such a grotesque end.

"He and his pal weren't that much of a meal though, being rushed as I was by my other cousin Breccan-"

Anne sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth, though; she figured she should have expected that. If Garrett was somehow related to this monster that meant his younger sister was too. But Kael seemed to not have noticed for he had kept talking.

"-and that stupid police car and sirens. You just can't enjoy hunts in the city like you can in the country. Open roads and empty fields…" He turned back to Anne who had been slowly sliding away from the blond vampire. He smirked and took another step toward her. "Open roads and empty fields and no one to hear the screams."

She couldn't stop the whimper from escaping her lips while her body felt electrified by the stress and fear it was experiencing. So this is what Garrett was talking about when he mentioned that there were some people, or well in this case, vampires that had one thing in mind when it came to humans.

Food and entertainment.

Okay, technically that was two but Anne didn't have time to argue with her mental monologue; she was too busy trying to not succumb to Kael's piercing gaze. She glowered at him and stood straighter hoping that it hid her true fear.

All Kael did in response to that was chuckle.

"Aw, is poor Anna-Lorraine scared?" he paused then said into the stretching silence, "Good, Though it- rather _you_- are a disappointment. A meal is never as tasty without having to struggle even a little bit for it. But then again, what was I expecting? I mean your father didn't put up much of a fight either so why should you-"

"What?" she gasped out, hearing nothing after the word father.

"Yeah, your father," he said with a sickening smile, "Or a man that I'm assuming is your father since you bear some resemblance to him. Green eyes, jaw structure … AB- blood type…"

"You hurt my dad?" Anne asked dumbly, "You're the one who killed him?"

"I didn't kill him," Kael said, frowning and coming closer until there was just two feet separating them. Anne's first guess that he was tall turned out false for he only stood an inch or two taller than her. "I just happened to have a hand in his demise. It was the robber over there's gun that dealt the final blow. Though I guess you could say it was my fault because I jumped the mangy vermin."

"Why? Why did you do that?" Anne croaked in a raspy voice.

"The two drug addicts were in my way to a very nice meal, so what other choice did I have except to go for the kill? Of course this was after the fact that Breccan told me that the victim of the robbery was your father. She warned me that her brother would be far from happy when he heard since apparently he staked some claim on you."

"Claim?" she asked trying to stay calm and masking her terror by flipping her hair behind her ear. It had come loose from the ponytail it had once been in.

"Yes, claim. For you see," Kael said in his smooth voice, "in the Night World when a vampire puts a claim on a human it means no other Nighter is aloud to touch said human because it would be seen as contaminating their food source."

"Food source?" Anne couldn't help the scoff that escaped her mouth when she said this. "You mean like biting and drinking blood? Garrett's never done that to me though so why-" she stopped realizing what she was saying. If Garrett had told people that he had a claim on her it was to protect her. And now she had just admitted to a hostile vampire that it had been a lie.

"Never done that?" Kael repeated looking mildly amused, "Huh. Well then this will be a first for you won't it?"

Before she could even shift away from him, Kael grabbed her. He clamped down on her arms with iron fingers and moved so he trapped her against the wall. Anne drew a breath to scream but found his hard hand covering her mouth.

"You don't want to do that," he hissed to her, "it will make this experience a whole lot worse than it has to be. But if you really want to give me the fight I've been looking for, go right ahead."

"Let go!" Anne yelled tired of this and sick of the direction it was headed. She was through with his playing with her. Rage boiled in her veins accompanied by adrenaline which gave her the strength to break the vampire's grip and attempt to get away.

But even with the help of the fighting hormones coursing through her body, she was still human and he was still a vampire.

Kael seemed to watch her lazily for a moment as Anne ran half stumbling her way towards a back door she saw before moving. Anne didn't see the blur he became but she did feel his iron hands grabbing on to her upper arms and pulling her away from the possible freedom.

"There's that fight I was looking for," he growled in to her ear as he yanked her against his chest.

Anne struggled fruitlessly, beating her fists against his implacable torso. She tried to recall any sliver of training she had received in her self-defense classes about how to break free from a frontal assault. Her mind came up blank, only seeing a cement wall in her thoughts where she knew all those particular memories remained.

Kael laughed, grabbing her flailing arms with one of his hands and pinning them between his body and hers. "Is this the best you can do?"

"Not even close," she snarled and thrust out a leg and wrapped it around his, jerking back and causing his legs to momentarily buckle. She twisted while he was still surprised and managed to get herself free. She stumbled a few feet away before Kael gained his balance back and grabbed her again with his rage evident in his tight grip.

"I'll give you props for that move but that's all. Playtime is over and I'm hungry," he said breathing in to her face. This time instead of pulling her closer to him, he shoved her against the wall again and dazing her. She felt him trap her with ease once more as she made no move to oppose him.

"Mmm," he mumbled brushing his nose against the skin of her neck, "you are a delight. I can't wait to sink my teeth in to you."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a voice interrupted Kael as he bent down to Anne's neck.

"Cousin, so nice of you join us." The smile was far from happy as Kael turned around pulling Anne with him to look at the door leading to the room.

"Garrett," she breathed out in relief when she saw the dark haired, tall figure come into sight but still continued to fight against Kael's grip.

"Let her go, Kael," her best friend snarled at his cousin, revealing his own fangs that flashed in the overhead lights. The way he walked forward was like a predator finding his territory threatened, graceful with the potentiality for one heck of a fight.

"Garrett, you know I can't fight the thirst when it calls. None of us can," the vampire that held Anne captive said in a velvety voice, "You also know that she can't live because she knows about us, about the Night World. So why don't you make this easier on the both of us and just run along and leave me and your… friend alone so we can get down to business?"

Kael tightened his grip on her body when Garrett took a smooth step forward with murder clearly written on his face. "Let her go, Kael. You know very well that this isn't about upholding the Night World laws. This is about you and me, not Anne.

"Unless she's more than a friend…" Kael suggested mockingly not listening to his cousin. When Garrett remained silent and Anne's struggles to get free momentarily stopped he had his answer. "Oh ho, so that's how this is? Tsk, tsk, trust a Redfern to fall for a human. Too bad whatever relationship you two had was so short lived."

"NO!" Garrett yelled, his eyes flooding silver.

But his yell came too late for Kael had already twisted one of his hands into Anne's hair. With that leverage he yanked her head back and to the side exposing her throat. Anne tried one more time to yank away from him just as he bit her.

*******Author's Note*******

8) So the good news is that it's only been a week since my last update and not a month and a half like last time.

The next chapter is the last one. Wow. It's hard to believe that this is ending. Don't worry though, I'm not done writing Night World Stories.

There's a poll that's going to be put up on my profile that let's you (the readers) pick which type of Nighter gets to be the main character's soulmate in my next fanfic.

So for now I wish you all a Happy Holiday.

Peace out.


	14. Journey

So, I'm sorry that I didn't keep my promise to finish the story before 2009 ended but hey, what can I say that I already haven't? I'm also sorry to say that this story has come to an end. This is the last chapter of my Night World fic When Reality Takes a Rain Check.

And I guess since this is the last chapter I might as well add one of my many forgotten disclaimers for this fic. In other words, I'm not L.J Smith. I don't own the idea of the Night World but I do own Garrett and Anne.

********

There was no way to ignore the pain. It was there and it was inescapable. A sting and then the sensation of having her soul pulled from her body hit Anne like a bomb. _Oh my god this is really happening to me_, she thought hazily.

Impossibly long, sharp fangs were piercing her flesh and their owner was drinking the red life that poured from the wound. Worse than that was the fact that her thoughts were not her own anymore. She had shared her mind with Garrett but that was very different because he was her soulmate and Kael was not. She knew that, unlike Garrett who just wanted to protect her, Kael wanted to kill her.

His mind was the dark hole that Anne had glimpsed in his eyes and now it pulled away and swarmed all her other senses.

And suddenly it stopped.

Anne felt herself wrenched out of the clinging, grasping arms of Kael, and pulled away. She collapsed with a gasp as her knees hit the unforgiving concrete floor. Deaf to all the other noises in the sparse and confining room Anne knelt there frozen in disbelief. Without thinking, her hand flew to her throat not wanting to feel what she knew she was going to. Her skin was tender as her fingers prodded the sensitive spot where teeth had sliced through her flesh.

However, when she took her hand away there was no blood, no way to tell that she had just been bitten and fed off of by a vampire. Then as she marveled at that revelation, Anne heard someone come up behind her.

She whipped around.

She first saw Kael, laying on the ground evidently unconscious where Garrett had no doubt thrown him as he freed Anne from Kael's grip. Then her eyes focused on Garrett who stood over her with a look of terror and worry on his pale and handsome face. Though his eyes were silver orbs and had fangs indenting his soft, sculpted lips he was the best thing she had seen all night next to when he had appeared in the doorway to this nightmarish room.

"Annie, are you alright?" he whispered hesitantly kneeling down to her level.

"Garrett," she breathed out and reached up to touch his handsome face in reverence. A silver line sung when the connection of skin against skin was made and he pulled her up. She did not wait a second before she flung her arms around him. "Oh my god," she said breathlessly, "you have no idea how glad I am to see you."

"Actually I do," Garrett said roughly after a moment of sitting frozen. Then he wove his own arms around her and pulled Anne against his chest. "I was so scared when I heard that you went walking all alone in downtown." He took her by the shoulders and gently shook her trying to get his point across. "What in hell possessed you to do that? After everything I've told you, you would think that you'd be more careful. Why did you go-"

Anne cut him of by putting her hands on top of his to stop his shaking. "My father is dead."

Anne did not waste time by beating around the bush for behind Garrett she saw that Kael was moving, shifting as he pushed himself up.

"What?" Garrett asked, blind to the moving vampire behind him. He put his hands on her cheeks and looked into Anne's eyes trying to find the lie he thought she was telling "Mr. Faysher is dead?"

"Yes," she said fighting back the tears that insisted on sliding down her cheeks. "Kael found him cornered by Zeek and his partner in crime." she watched as Garrett briefly glanced at the corpse of Zeek laying haphazardly in his corner then went on. "There was something about AB- blood but I didn't pay much attention to that part. I was still in shock from the news that a hostile vampire had kidnapped me."

"I'm honored that you think of me that way."

The two of them jumped and turned around to see that Kael had gotten himself up all the way and now lounged against the wall as if he had not a care in the world. Garrett quickly shifted so he pulled Anne behind him as he put himself between them. A wooden, broken staircase was visible that seemed to lead upward; that confirmed her suspicion that the room was underground. But, too late did they realize that the door was behind Kael who stood looking smugly at them noticing the same thing.

_Anne I need you to get back_, Garrett whispered in her mind.

She jumped at the unexpectedness of it but momentarily relished the feeling of closeness and safety she felt when his mind melded with hers. It was such a difference from Kael's dark mind. Then she refocused on what Garrett was telling her.

_Let me get Kael out of the way and then run_.

_Garrett, _she said objecting though she did not know what she could do if indeed the two of them fought.

_Anne, listen to me! _Garrett's mental voice sounded harder and more dangerous than before but Anne could not find it in herself to be afraid of it. He turned slightly to look at her over his shoulder for he was still standing with his back facing her. Even in doing so, he was still able to keep an eye on Kael. His eyes were strong but pleading, silently telling her to not argue and not be stubborn for once in her lifetime.

_And no matter what I need you to promise to do what I tell you to do. _Anne still hesitated in answering when she heard him whisper, _Please? _

"Okay, enough with the silent conversation Gary," Kael said snidely.

A shiver went up Anne's spine at the sound of Kael's cold voice.

_Anne, I mean it. Move_, Garrett said again with more ice in it.

"She doesn't have to go," Kael said in a silky voice. Anne looked at the other vampire with repulsion. He appeared like an ice prince out of a nightmare. Kael's green eyes had changed to pools of mercury. When he met Anne's gaze from over Garrett's shoulder she shrank back. He smiled his sickly sweet, fanged grin and said, "If she enjoyed my mouth on her neck it's fine by me. I've always been a lady killer and won't object if she wants more."

Garrett growled deep in his chest, a frightful sound, it did not seem to faze his cousin.

Anne reached out a hand and touched Garrett's shoulder. _Be careful_.

"I'll try," he softly said aloud.

"You are such a spoil sport," Kael said rolling his eyes and standing up to walk toward Garrett who stiffened and literally snarled at him. He went on "give it up _Gary_ we both know that you haven't fought another vampire physically in years." He looked smug when he said his next sentence, "but I have. You rely in telepathy to fight your brawls. But guess what? I'm just as strong as you are in that department." He smirked, "You will lose and then there won't be anyone to protect your little... friend. So why don't you at least save your own skin and leave?"

"You don't get it," Garrett spat, sounding harsher than Anne had ever heard, "but then again I never expected you to understand. I can't just walk away and let you have Anne. It would kill me either way. She's my best friend and my life." Garrett looked at Anne who stood still, trying to disappear into the wall. She stopped moving when she met his warm aqua gaze. "She always has been and will be as long as I have air in my lungs."

"How lovely," Kael spat out, "now can we please just get on with this? I'm still hungry."

And he leaped at Garrett.

"No!" Anne could not hold back the scream that tore its way through her throat. She looked away not wanting to see her soulmate risk his life for hers. She tried and failed to bloke the sounds from her ears as she heard two bodies slam together and feral snarls rip the air apart.

"Anna-Lorraine go!" she heard Garrett suddenly yell both in mind and mouth. Without thinking, she skittered the middle of the room keeping to the walls with her eyes locked on the cement floor. "Garrett...." she whispered torn in two as she reached the dark and unstable stairwell.

"Just go!" Garrett yelled right before she heard cloth ripping.

"I love you," she finally whispered as she grabbed the door in a shaking hand and used it to push herself up the stairs. She flung out her hands trying to see in the dimness and not trip and break her neck. The wood under her feet creaked and groaned but it did nothing to block out the sounds that came from behind her or the guilt that she felt for leaving Garrett alone.

She burst out on to the landing running with a speed that normally she would not have when she heard a sound that made her feet cease to move. A muffled cry of pain followed her up and the sound of a body hitting a wall. She knew that voice, muffled as it was. Garrett. Anne turned slightly to look down the dilapidated staircase over her shoulder and bit her bottom lip. At the sound of another pained cry, Anne gave one of her own.

"I can't to anything!" she cried out at the unfairness of this. "Keep going, don't turn around."

She tried to convince herself to let it go but she could not and Anne knew why. It was not just some guy down there giving up his life for hers; it was her best friend since the second grade and her soulmate.

She moved then before the more rational side of her mind could comprehend anything and started back down the stairs. She slipped and slid completely unsure just what she was going to do once she got back into the hellish underground room. Near the middle of the rickety stairs; though, she tripped, falling down a few of the splintering steps. Her hands went out to grasp anything that was near and a gasp escaped from between her lips when she felt her skin catch on the jagged wood that made up the stairwell. Pricks of pain went up her hands and wrists. Anne paused and cradled her appendages close to her chest getting used to the pain so she could ignore it later. Then as the snarls and growls continued to float up to her ears, she remembered something.

_Human books and movies got one thing right_. That was Garrett's voice strong and determined.

_Oh yeah? And what would that be?_ Now her own words came back to haunt Anne, the disbelief and skepticism stinging her, since now she saw how sharp she had been with Garrett.

_Wood is the only thing that can seriously hurt us. Or kill us of the need arises. _

_Wood, wood, wood, _Anne now chanted in her mind. She had plenty of that particular material what with her sitting on a broken down staircase as she thought this. Her fingers scrabbled over the rough surface trying to pry a large piece that she found away from its original place.

"Say good night Garrett," she suddenly heard Kael whisper, his malicious voice carrying to her ears.

"Garrett!" she breathed out his name and with one final yank, she ripped the wood from its nailed in position. She was up and running half-stumbling down the steps again with the wooded board flailing in her grasp. She had no idea if it should be sharpened into a point as the stakes always were in the movies but then she burst through the door and she could not care.

She glanced at the body of Zeek laying in its lonely corner then her eyes riveted on the two struggling figures that occupied the middle of the room. Of course, what she saw did not surprise her since she had imagined far worse scenarios in her mind since she had stopped her feet from running away.

In a split second, she took in the scene before her.

Kael's shirt was ripped away from his body and surprisingly enough he sported many bruises on his skin. Garrett was not as worse for wear as Kael was but he happened to be being pinned to the ground under his cousin. Garrett's silver eyes widened when he caught sight of Anne inching forward win her hands clinging to a decrepit piece of floorboard behind her back.

Before he could yell at her for not listening to him, Kael spoke again "You should have just left well enough alone Gary," Kael hissed through his fangs taking no notice to he frightened female who just barged through the door, "for now you're dead and my meal is just down the road."

"No she's not," Anne said startling Kael out of his deadly mindset and causing him to turn around "she's right here."

"Oh ho, look who's back for a second round," the menacing vampire said with a smirk.

The smirk was short lived for the moment his gaze moved from that of Garrett's, Garrett surged up, knocking his cousin to the side. Anne's best friend leapt to his feet and made to move towards her. Anne flinched at all the sudden movements but managed to keep the piece of wood behind her back and out of sight. However, before Garrett could reach her Kael darted across the room and bowled Garrett, over lunging towards Anne.

"Anne!" Garrett yelled as he was shoved to the side, in a direction he did not want to go.

"This ends now," Kael snarled grabbing Anne's forearms and being surprised when she did not fight back.

"Your right, it does end now," she said looking up into Kael's face. Before Kael could kill her or even question what she was saying Anne shoved something at his chest.

It started as a tingle then spread into a burning. Kael choked on the air he was breathing in and felt his arms and legs start to go numb from the fire that was coursing through his veins.

"What-what did you-" he tried to choke out as he rattled Anne's body in his hands. She gasped as she felt his fingers dig into her flesh and start to bruise.

"Do?" Anne finished his struggling sentence, "I just gave you what you deserved, for killing my father… a stake to the heart."

Kael could not respond for the wood that was now drilled through his chest was sending the most hated type of poison through his body. Anne let go of her make shift weapon, now stuck in the vampire's torso, and brought her arms up and in trying to break out of Kael's grip, but found that certain death had caused his muscles to freeze up and relentlessly grasp her limbs.

"Let go!" she exclaimed and suddenly feared that her bones were about to break. She was scared, that is until Garrett pried his dying cousin's fingers from her limbs. He was merciless as he pushed Kael away from Anne. He gently pulled her away so she would not see how Kael's handsome features turned wrinkled and dried or how his body collapsed in on itself as he fell back against the floor.

"Come on," Garrett said tugging Anne towards the stairs again while she stayed silent. He looked down at her when they reached the bottom of the steps and saw that she was not in any state of mind that would have allowed her to scramble up them again. With a short moment of hesitation, he reached down and scooped Anne up in his arms. She gave a sharp gasp when she felt her feet leave the floor but other than that, she was still quiet.

_I can't believe I did that_, she thought repeatedly as Garrett nimbly and successfully traipsed up the stairs. Her hands throbbed where the splinters of wood were embedded into her skin and the night's activities were catching up to her. Even after they got to level ground, Garrett continued to carry Anne. The old floorboards squeaked under his light footsteps as he made his way to the door that he had come through. He continued to walk down a dirty alley way that was located behind the building that now held his cousins body and the body of the their Zeek.

_Well_, Garrett thought to himself, _that means I don't have to go and find the pieces of filth and kill them myself._

"Garrett," Anne suddenly spoke quietly from her position in his arms.

"Yeah Annie?" he answered hoping the sound of her nickname would be a comfort to her. She did not answer and Garrett did not know if she was even going to finish what she was about to say. He stopped in his stride and he slowly set her down on her feet. He let go only after he made sure she was not going to fall over. In a concerned voice he asked, "Anne are you hurt anywhere?"

She mumbled an incoherent answer even his sensitive ears could not make out which prompted him to reply, "Fine, don't answer me. I'll just have to check you over myself."

Gently, all business like it seemed, he put his hand under her chin to tilt her face up so he could meet her eyes. Before she could even think, he brushed his other hand over the spot where Kael had bitten her. It stung like a bug bite but other than that, it was all right. Vaguely, Anne heard Garrett heave a small sigh of relief as his hand passed over that spot. Then his hands drifted down her arms to take hold of her own.

Somehow, against the odds, she was stubbornly ignoring the silver cord that had sprung up in her mind that silently told her to forget reality and fall into an oblivion that consisted of Garrett's mind.

"What did you do here?" Anne registered Garrett's question as he flipped her hands to be palm up. She winced when she saw that they were spotted with slivers of wood mixed with blood. Immediately, she yanked her hands away from Garrett's shoving them deep in her pockets ignoring the flairs of pain that brought.

"What was that for?" he asked sounding surprised and hurt.

"It's my blood," she answered hesitantly, "I didn't want to tempt you because if you…." she took a breath bracing herself for how stupid she was about to sound, "If you lost control and- and bit me or something it'd probably kill you what with wood being imbedded in my skin and I could never live with myself if I hurt you-"

"Anna-Lorraine," Garrett said forcefully and reached out to gently grab hold of her arms and pull them from her pockets. "First of all, if I lost control just because of the smell of wood tainted blood would be amazed and disappointed at my lack of control. What with your absolute clumsiness and gravitational challenges, I have had my fair share of experiences with your blood. Haven't I told you that I've been stopping myself for twelve years from biting you?" She shrugged unsure where he was going with this. He went on, a sincere look flooding his expression, "Anne, you are safe with me. I promise never to hurt you like Kael did and I will never let you hurt me. And I'm sorry that what happened tonight is with Kael is making you doubt that promise."

Anne but her lip and turned away from him, pulling her hands from his grip once again. He could not see her face, which worried him.

"Anne?" he said quietly walking forward to see her clearly again. He stopped cold when he saw that his friend was crying. He immediately moved and captured her face between his hands. He traced soothing circles on her cheeks with his thumbs, wiping away the water, while he said, "Anne what are you crying about?"

"Garrett," she sobbed out, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"For what?" he asked worried to no end about why she was weeping.

"He-he was your cousin, but... But he was going to kill you... And-and..." her voice trailed off

"Anna-Lorraine, what happened was not your fault," Garrett said rather severely making Anne wrench away from him. He regretted his unkind sounding words when he felt anger flair up in his soulmate's mind.

"Really? Not my fault?" she asked incredulously and looked down at her sneaker clad feet, "Well, it sure does feel like it is my fault."

"You are not the one blame here," Garrett said ardently and once again making her look up at him.

Anne could not help but notice how handsome he looked right then. With a little dirt smudged across his left cheek and what looked like a freshly healed cut on his forehead, he appeared disheveled and dashing at the same time. His eyes had faded back to there deep blue color they were before the fight and his vampire fangs were non-existent. And as Anne looked at him, standing at the entrance of some godforsaken alleyway, his head was haloed by the stars that managed to make their way from behind the rain clouds that had been present all day. What Garrett said next though got her attention away from pondering his looks.

"If anyone is to blame here, it's me."

"Why on earth would it be you?" Anne asked harshly, "I don't recall you stabbing your best friend's cousin with a rotting piece of wood and killing him."

"Well was there any other way to help me?" Garrett asked matter-of-factly after a moment of silent thinking.

"Not that I knew of," she answered slowly.

"So are you regretting that you saved my life?" he asked seriously.

"No, I'd never regret that," she said adamantly, throwing her hands up in the air, "but I regret killing someone to do so! And-"

"Oh Anne," Garrett whispered and suddenly she found herself encompassed in his arms. "My cousin was no more than a monster in the truest form. He is the kind of vampire that gives the rest of us bad names. The world is a better place without him. But seriously Annie," he said stroking her hair away from her face to look clearly into her jungle colored eyes, "don't beat yourself up. The past is over and done with. Now we just have to worry about the future."

All Anne could do in response was stare at him with a mixture of emotions fighting for dominance on her face. She shut her eyes, her mind a whirlwind of doubt.

So many things had happened in the span of not even two days. How had her weekend, no more than a month before graduation at that, turned into one that consisted of falling in love, being kidnapped, and running for her life? How had it turned from having a relatively good life with amazing grades, a talent for the piano, and a loving family in to having nearly nothing? She had not had a mother's love for some years, and now she had no father to love and to be loved by. She and her brother were alone.

Garrett traced a finger over Anne's lips trying his hardest to think straight while she was so close. The sweet caress jolted her out of her pity fest but still she kept her eyes closed.

"Annie, listen to me," Garrett whispered.

She slowly opened her eyes, feeling the now freed tears roll down her cheeks.

"Annie, you're still, without a doubt, the best pianist in the state of Illinois, your intelligence has not gone down at all and your mother and father were not the only ones to love you." He cradled her in the shelter of his chest. "Your brother loves you though he shows it with ridiculous names and crude jokes. However, I hope you will never forget that I love you also. And I can only hope that my love will be enough." He bent his face closer to hers so that their breath mingled and their lips almost brushed when he spoke. "You have to remember sunshine when it storms, peace when there is war, and love when there is heartbreak."

"Garrett," she started to say but stopped when her throat closed up with all the emotions she was experiences. It did not matter what she was going to say anyway for he kissed her.

It surprised Anne and for a minute she wanted to do nothing more than smack him, but she didn't. She melted in to his embrace and somehow found the strength to wrap her own arms around his neck, returning his act of passion with one of her own. The world fell away. The chilly alley, the dark surrounding buildings, and any worries that plagued her went right down the drain along with anything that was not just them.

_How did you find me? _she whispered to him with her mind. That question had been nagging her for a good portion of the night.

_Easy_, Garrett said, _I followed the silver brick road. Or in this case a strange silver cord._

_That is so cheesy_, Anne laughed, smiling in to the clouds that surrounded them. Time was lost on her and Garrett, as they gave and shared comfort and whispered sweet nothings into each other's mind.

Eventually, though, Garrett managed to pull the two of them out of their personal heaven.

_Why do we have to leave?_ Anne asked holding close to Garrett, trying to share his very skin.

He chuckled, _I'm so glad that you're happy enough to whine at and strangle me_.

_Oh shut up, _she rested her forehead against his chest. Aloud she said, "And if you don't want me to start crying again, I suggest you answer the question."

"Do you want some police officer to find us, in downtown Rockford, making out in an alley way not twenty meters from a building that was broken into-"

"That contains two dead bodies," Anne interjected.

"Fine," Garrett agreed unwillingly, "That contains two dead bodies."

"And you know, the way you say "making out" makes it sound so unromantic," Anne tried to look unhappy but in truth she loved how Garrett sounded when he said _us making out_.

"You know you like it," Garrett whispered in to her ear causing her to laugh and shiver at the same time, "you can't hide from me."

Anne brought a hand up to stroke the side of his face. "Oh Garrett," she pressed a soft kiss against his neck loving the way she could feel his quickened pulse against her sensitive skin, "I could never hide from you."

Garrett caught her stroking hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the back of it while being careful not to brush her cuts. "I never thought you'd be able to anyway."

She shook her head and leaned up to kiss her soulmate to overwhelmed to say or do anything else.

"I'm sorry to ruin the mood but we have to leave you know," Garrett whispered against her lips and in her mind.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said, "before a police officer finds us-"

"No Annie," he said moving back enough to look at her without going cross-eyed, "I mean we have to leave Rockford. Probably Illinois as well."

"What?" She could not believe her ears and tried to ask, "but-"

"I'm sorry," he said so reverently that there was no way for her to think he was lying, "but for the both of us to be together and to be safe we have to go somewhere nobody knows us."

She took a breath trying to reign in her emotions. Lately they had all been running amuck. "Fine."

"Anne, I said I was sorry but it's the only thing- wait." he stopped in his vehement apology, "Did you just say-"

"Fine?" Anne finished with him. "As a matter of fact, I did. If that's what it takes to keep you in my life and the both of us alive then I will do it." She paused biting her bottom lip, "But could we maybe wait till my father is buried? That's all I want. My Aunt Cindy, who lives in Rockton, can be in charge of selling the house and possessions." She paused seeing who and what she would have to leave behind. "But my brother-"

"Will most likely be coming with us," Garrett said surprising her into silence. She was speechless but Garrett knew what question was on the tip of her tongue. "Well it seems that he's fallen in love with a witch and the only choice they have is the same as ours."

"A witch?" she repeated lamely trying to think through what he said. "You don't mean.... Lerata? She's a witch?"

Garrett's answer was a just a grin that caused her to kiss him one last time.

So then they went, disappearing into the dark streets of Rockford, a city that held many memories for the both of them. Anne knew she was going to miss it dearly. It was her home, the place of her birth, the location of her mother's grave... everything.

But she couldn't find it in herself to be bitter about this coming Journey. Anne saw it as an opportunity to grow, in life, in knowledge, and in love.

******Author's Note*******

*Tears* I can't believe it's finished.

This story has taken up the good portion of a year of my life and now it's done. WOW. I feel kind of empty. What a way to start a new year and end Winter Break....

I want to thank each and everyone of you that read this, favorited this, or put the story on their alert lists. There is no way to show my gratitude to all of you whose patience you showed me and encouragement that I recieved.

YOU GUYS FREAKEN ROCK MY WORLD!!!!!!!!

Okay... now that that's out of my system I have some good and bad news.

Bad: There will not be a sequel to this particular story but I might write some little extra things pertaining to Garrett and Anne's life before WRTARC took place. (ok so that's not ALL bad news)

Good: I will be writing another Night World Series fic. But before I get started I need all of you readers, who haven't already, to go to my profile and vote for what type of Nighter you want to be part of the soulmate couple. (i.e. Werewolf, Vampire, Witch)

So once again, thank you.

Yours Truly,

Irayana


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